A Pilgrim’s Digression

Last Thursday, I had an unfortunate experience with a beggar that I have been struggling to find a way to write about. I’ve become quite calloused in my response to panhandlers, and what I have to recognize about myself is that the callous was always there, really. I have just covered it with a silky veil of hypocritical pity.

I first visited Washington, D.C., when I was a senior in High School in 1991. That year, I took a class called Humanities, solely for the reason that every year in April, the teacher took her students on a class trip to Washington. Probably many other people took the class in order to go on the trip as well; certainly, they did not take the class because they were eager to read Oedipus Rex or learn to appreciate the high art that is Mozart’s Così fan tutte.

I have an excellent recall of many things that happened on that trip, chief among them an incident that occurred on the way to Ford’s theatre.

Typically, we rode around Washington in our big charter bus, but on this one occasion our teacher wanted us to use Metro to get to Ford’s theatre. I remember coming up out of the Metro—I suppose it was the Metro Center stop, since it is closest to Ford’s—and as we began following our teacher down the street, suddenly we were accosted by a horde of panhandlers. Even today, I have never seen beggars in such large numbers, but at the time I supposed it typical for Washington.

In class, prior to our trip, the teacher had warned us not to give any money to panhandlers, because others would then mark us as a soft touch. It was difficult to resist their entreaties, however. Coming from a small town in West Virginia, where poor people at least lived in some kind of housing, it was shocking to see such filthy, human wrecks sitting on a sidewalk, begging for money.

I gave one of them some change from my pocket, and just as my teacher predicted, the others immediately got up and began crowding around. I would have stood there and divested myself of every cent I had, if my teacher had not seen what happened and came back for me, pulling me away from them.

When I got home to West Virginia, I told my family about what had happened, and we shook our heads in pity and felt glad we lived in a place whose poor were all carefully disguised as human beings.

“I could never live in a place like that,” my Dad said.

I agreed, but secretly I thought I might like to live in Washington, one day.
Fifteen years later, in 2006, I now work in Washington, and I like it here. I actually like the city and consider it my city. I may be one of the only people in existence who, upon retirement, wishes to move into Washington rather than flee from it. I sometimes daydream about owning one of the lovely, small row houses that I see in my lunchtime wanderings around Capitol Hill.
Yet, the issue of poverty in the city is still an unresolved matter that gnaws at my conscience. I can’t quite be satisfied with my daydream of urban life. Even though I have never since seen anything like the crowd of downtrodden that harassed me that April day in 1991, I see poor people, presumably homeless people, all the time.

When I came here in 2002, I frequently gave money. Sometimes I even stopped a moment and talked to the people to whom I gave money. I liked to learn their names and, if possible, a little about them. They weren’t particularly talkative, and after exchanging basic information (”I’m Matt, and you are?”), there wasn’t much more to say. It felt awkward. I wondered if they thought I was trying to determine if they were worthy of the money I was giving them.

Eventually, I found myself rationalizing reasons not to give anything to them. A typical example of my thinking would be as follows: “If I give this dollar to Norma, I won’t have enough for my coffee at Starbucks tomorrow. And I don’t have time to go to an ATM. I’d probably have to pay a two dollar service charge, anyway. And besides, people say that givng money to panhandlers does more harm than good.  So I’d better walk another route to work so I don’t have to see Norma.”

After awhile, not only did I not give money to Norma, or any of the others anymore, but I even stopped thinking about them. Then I stopped seeing them. If I saw one ahead of where I was walking, I would find myself instinctively looking down at the ground. If I don’t look at them, they aren’t really there.

Last Thursday, something happened to me that both shocked me into paying attention again, and yet at the same time, could easily confirm all the rationalizations I’ve developed to shield me from having to paying attention.

Thursday evening, I left work an hour early, and I was standing at a Metro station bus stop waiting for the bus to take me home.  I was reading Cakes and Ale, so I was most certainly in another world.

Suddenly, a man stepped directly in front of me and said, “Excuse me, Sir, I need money for the Metro so I can go home. Can you spare a dollar?”

I am not unfamiliar with the tactic at play here. The panhandler approaches a person and startles them by addressing them directly, usually asking for bus or Metro fare rather than complaining of hunger. The tactic sometimes pays off. It paid off in this case, as well.

I looked up from my book, a bit off balance mentally. Even as my rational brain was saying, “Just shake your head no and go back to your book,” I found myself answering.

“Where do you live?”

“Silver Spring,” he said. “I need money for the Metro. I just can’t walk it tonight; I’m too tired.”

“Do you have a job?” I asked.

“No,” he answered simply.

“What’s your name?”

“James.”

He was smiling; I didn’t get a sense that he was threatened by my questions, though in retrospect the whole situation was pretty ridiculous and maybe even dangerous.

I pulled out my wallet and looked inside. I had plenty of cash, about twenty-six or thirty dollars. By now, I was fully conscious that I was acting like an utter rube, standing there with my wallet open in front of this stranger, but I didn’t feel I could go back and change things. I couldn’t just shake my head and go back to sleep, not now. Maybe not in the beginning, either.

I pulled out two dollars. “This should be enough to get you home,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “I just want to go home.”

Then, still grinning, he lifted his left hand, which he had been holding stiffly down at his side. He was holding a paper bag, and I could see the top of a 12 oz. beer can protruding from the bag.

“Or maybe I’ll buy another beer with it, I just don’t know yet,” he said. “Thanks.”

And he walked away.

Beside me, two women burst out laughing.

“Every day, he pulls that on someone,” one of them said.

“Every day,” the other one affirmed.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” I asked.

Neither woman answered. For awhile, they continued giggling at my foolishness. Then the bus came and we got on.

I felt embarrassed and angry. I said to myself, “If I ever see him again, he won’t get a dime from me.”

The question before me is, what is the proper Christian response to the request this person made of me? And what is the proper response to how my charity was appreciated?  When I think about Christ’s words, I don’t think I should have acted otherwise than I did.

In Luke 6:29-30, Jesus says, “If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.  Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.”  In a sense, I followed Jesus’s commandment, though unintentionally, which I suppose means it doesn’t count.  Additionally, there is the issue of my anger, and my complete inability to come even part of the way to following Jesus’s advice.

Furthermore, the incident has instilled in my an even greater reticence to be charitable.

On Saturday, Brendan, Lynn, and I came into Washington to do a couple museums, and as we were walking up the Mall from the Smithsonian Metro station to the Air and Space Museum, we passed a beggar sitting on a bench, asking for money. Brendan looked at him as we passed; he actually turning his head to look back as we walked; I didn’t look at all and thought to myself, “Not one damned dime.”

Then, about a block later, I saw a man sitting on the sidewalk at the corner of 7th and Jefferson Drive, near the Hirshorn. He was improvising some jazz on a trumpet. No matter how good or bad the player, a trumpet always sounds best outdoors, especially with buildings around to intensify the sound.  The music softened my heart.
The trumpet player was sitting on a sleeping bag; he had placed a 2 gallon bucket in front of him, and it had some change and a few dollar bills in it. I gave Brendan a dollar and asked him to put it in the bucket. When he did, the man stopped playing and said, “Thank you, Son. God bless you, and God bless this glorious day.”

As we walked on, I could not help feeling uncomfortable, however. I had passed up a beggar sitting on a bench to give money to a beggar playing a trumpet. Essentially, I had paid for a service, rather than committed an act of charity. Making matters worse, I felt related to the trumpet-playing beggar, being a trumpet player myself at one time. Charity is not charity, when it depends on whether a person is “like” us, or whether we are given something in return.

I thought about the lines from Shakespeare, “The quality of mercy is not strained, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven / Upon the place beneath.” The rain does not size a man up and say, “He looks worthy of my wetness, but this other fellow shall go dry.”

After thinking about it, I can’t justify my actions or my thoughts and feelings on either of these occasions. I am not even going to try. I am an uncharitable hypocrite, motivated to give out of a sense of overwhelming guilt and selfishness. Today, I stand about as far removed from Christ’s example of charity and mercy as any millionaire riding down a city street, sealed safe and oblivious within his Cadillac.

Almost every day, something occurs to remind me how unappreciative I am of God’s goodness to me, and how unwilling I am to repay God’s kindness through kindness to other people.  Why am I here, comfortable, fat, and with enough cash in my wallet, rather than playing the trumpet on some street corner?  I don’t believe hard work or discipline or brains had much to do with it, because I’m lazy, undisciplined, and my brain is pretty weak. I believe it comes down to God’s grace, mostly.

The other day, while waiting in line at Starbucks, I picked up something called a “Giving Card” from a stack left there by an organization called the “Business Improvement District.” On one side, it read, “The Capitol Hill BID is working to make the Hill a better place to live, work, and visit. But giving money to panhandlers slows down the effort. A few cents may seem very little to you, but does more harm than good—especially to the panhandlers themselves.” The card went on to encourage people to give this card in place of money; on the back of it are phone numbers and addresses for various shelters around the city.

I wonder who wrote that?  What prompted them to take such an aggressive stance against panhandlers? Did they have a bad experience with a panhandler such as I did?  Maybe they’ve forgotten that their own position in life, and the position of the homeless people they hope to erase from view, are reversible, but for the grace of God.

Probably, they think they’ve gotten where they are today—making good money and living in some swanky home on Capitol Hill—because material wealth and happiness is their birth right. Most people think they have a right to happiness…I’ve always found that the most troubling part of our American Constitution.  It does not seem a given, to me.  And probably they think the homeless person is on the street corner because of laziness or poor character.

I wish I could agree with the writer of the “Giving Card” that giving money to beggars only prolongs their dependency (as if because we can’t solve a person’s poverty, we shouldn’t try to help them at all). I wish I could really stop looking at beggars and wondering about them, and feeling guilty because I don’t want to help them. That’s the truth, you see: I don’t want to help them, and I find plenty of reasons not to help them. I’m no better than the person who wrote that grotesquely euphemistic “Giving Card.”

Everyone else seems so perfectly at ease doing nothing. There is at least nothing hypocritical about them, unlike me. They don’t profess charity, and so they don’t have to demonstrate it. People gabble into their cell phones as they walk to the train, passing by five or ten beggars whom they don’t hear ask them for money. Their consciences sleep easy at night, no doubt.

My concern for the poor is a total sham, empty words and thoughts without any resulting action. Instead, I am angry at the man who took my two dollars, a paltry sum, under false pretenses.

Under the circumstances, all I can do is pray, but I am not even sure what to pray.  Do I pray something like Psalm 51, a sort of confession and request for forgiveness? And of course after confession should come penance. Confession without some corrective action is pointless, as I know well from past experience. How many times do I confess sin, only to go forth and sin again?

Yet I know, I will pray my confession and that will probably be the end of it.  I will take no action, knowing myself as I do.

Lord, help me to give without any thought of receiving. Help me to show mercy, as you are merciful with me. Help me to be poor in spirit with the poor in body. Lord, forgive me, and help me to forgive. Forgive me my good fortune in life.  Forgive me all the advantages I have had. Forgive me my excessive pride. Forgive me my ignorance. Forgive me my false compassion. Forgive me the way I waste the gift of life you gave me. Forgive me. Forgive me.