Charity and Gratitude

With the holidays just ended, most of us have probably given to a charity or two. CARE, Doctors Without Borders, the Stephen Lewis Fund, the local food banks, etc., are popular here, and we all feel a warm satisfaction in giving to these charities.  There are no strings attached, and even something like the Christian Children's Fund, which makes gifts personal and individual, does not expose us to people face-to-face.  Everyone is grateful -- the givers and the receivers.

But then there is charity at home, in our community, face-to-face. The tone changes. The hungry person on the street is not altogether happy with the meal you have bought for him -- that should have been pastrami not corned beef. June and I deliver for "Meals on Wheels" once a week. The vast majority of recipients are gracious and engaging and pleased to have the service and someone to talk to for a few minutes. But even among the gracious, you begin to see qualifiers. "Phone before you deliver the meal" because the recipient always keeps her doors locked. "When you arrive (after calling ahead on your cell phone), deliver the meal to the side door. Ring the bell. Take off your shoes. Cut the meat. Get a spoon." Do not talk to me, I am busy watching my TV show. "Do not allow the bird to escape. It is allowed to fly free in our house." Or, no face-to-face, "enter through the side gate, ring the bell, enter the foyer, put the meal on the table beside the door"; one almost expects to read the following instructions: "back away slowly, do not look up, run for the car."

What is going on, don't they realize we are doing this as volunteers??? Well, yes, they do. And, "damn it, I wish I didn't need this service." Or, "my daughter, my son has made me take these meals, to be invaded in my own home by a different stranger every day." Charity is a hard thing to receive -- we used to say in a "prosperous society." But it isn't the level of prosperity one has, or one had. It is the culture of autonomy, agency, self-reliance that is threatened in taking these meals, or that handout, and "damn it, I resent the fact I have to be helped at all." So, while it appears the MOW volunteer has the upper hand, the condescending ability to give charity to someone they see, "I can take charge myself, put up rules, make that deliverer remove their shoes, put myself back into the seat of power."

It is hard to expect manners, politeness, above all gratitude, from people who feel they have lost too much in the bargain. But when the gift is from a remote source, even one you may know by name and face, and when it is desperately needed, or life changing in need, the gratitude is palpable and real. So, "charity may begin at home," but it is hard to give at home. As a friend of mine once said about raising one's own children, the experience is the very definition of "unrequited love"; in fact, it is worst than that for most, probably. The other fact about charity at home is that society collectively should be doing something about the need, not some local agency of charity, and we all know that (e.g., we should not need soup kitchens and homeless shelters).  This makes local charity even harder to justify and maintain; it also makes the recipients rightfully disturbed at being placed in the position they find themselves.

Uh, and what does this have to do with "history matters more." Almost everything. It has to do with how we decide to care for the folks in our own society, and how that has been ignored in the past.