Dear old and new friends,
    
     As we enter into this new week of a new year the journalist Mignon McLaughlin reminds us, “The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it.” Regardless if you are trying to live differently in this new year or are simply going on with life as you did in old 2015, check your backpack. Not only children going to school or hikers wear a backpack, each one of us does. We carry and are affected by our past experiences and past thinking. Does that mean we are supposed to examine our thoughts about life back in 2000 or 1960?

     Further back than that even, for we carry on our backs attitudes, thinking and fears that go back to when we dwelled in caves. The Ice Age began 2.6 million years ago when glaciers and ice sheets covered for a prolonged time northern parts of the world. Seeking shelter from the bitter cold and icy winds, it is believed former tent dwelling hunters inhabited caves for protection. If you live where bitter biting cold, snow and ice are common this time of year in North America, you can identify with your most ancient ancestors seeking the warmth of a fire in the shelter a cave. Scholars believe we today are still hardwired with some of the attitudes and thinking of those prehistoric times!

     This brief review of history is directly related to our daily needs and those of the poor. While the Salvation Army bell ringers aren’t collecting for the poor now, the daily needs of the unfortunate are just as real, if not more so than at Christmas. Compassion is a 365-day attitude of the heart, not just at the holidays. However, after all the many requests for our generosity in the days before and at Christmas, we can easily suffer from what psychologists call “psychic numbering.” This causes us to see but not feel, and to justify our lack of compassion by saying, “I gave at the holidays.”

     Take the case of a small child in dirty clothes and face who stops you on the street and begs you for help. Moved by compassion you reach for your billfold. Then another identically poor dirty child appears begging for help. Suddenly your loving compassion suffers a serious puncture, if not a major leak. Because of what’s hidden in your backpack it doesn’t take ten other children for us to react negatively…only one more! It seems we are prehistorically psychologically wired to help only one person at a time! Also studies show we are less inclined to donate to large scale relief for some major disaster because of cave day thinking such as “My gift is only drop in the bucket.”

     For a really fresh “new” year, lighten your load and enliven your life by disposing of as much as possible of your back pack. Keep your mind up to date with the times as you jettison cave dwellers’ fears and discard childhood worries in a personal evolution of your mental habits.

Dear old and new friends,

     Jesus never said, “When in need—beg!” He sent his disciples off to preach the Good News without a staff, second cloak or money to live in the unshakable trust of God’s loving care. As for our daily needs, he said to pray, “Give us this day’s bread”; and the apostle Paul said, “Pray always.” Now since pray sounds very much like the English word “prey,” his disciples today whose ministries are in need often “prey” upon us as if we were wild game. As Sherlock Holmes said, “Hurry, Watson the game is afoot,” you and I are the targets in this holiday season for pious beggars from a rainbow of religious affiliations, some of whom actually come to your door begging. But I know of no single scriptural justification for Christians to become beggars, regardless how worthy their cause.

     Personally, I was unaware Christmas was so near until two weeks before Thanksgiving in the front of local stores I found the holiday Salvation Army bell ringers. This is important: The Salvation Army is my favorite organization that cares for the poor; even if I detest their guilt-instilling bell ringers. God gave us eyes to see those in need and wants us to spontaneously and lovingly respond to their needs. Our generosity to them must always be a “gifting” of our love with zero guilt! Feeling guilty, that soul-needling sense that somehow we are at fault is contradictory to loving, yet guilt is often the hidden weapon of pious beggars. They prey upon us by mail, magazine ads and from the pulpit, along with encouragements to enter all kinds of marathons for various causes.

     The Salvation Army Christmas fund-raising campaign was chosen by a group of university researchers to test people’s attitudes towards charitable giving. They chose a large store with two main entrances. Salvation Army bell ringers were placed at one entrance, and they alternated simply ringing their small bell with at other times also looking directly into the eyes of the customers, saying, “Please, give today!” Soon the store’s customers began entering by the second door; then when bell ringers appeared at that entrance as well asking for money some people actually began entering by the store’s third door marked for deliveries.

     Together with this traffic flow evidence, researchers inside the store surveyed customer’s feelings about the bell ringers. Their combined research showed clearly we hate to be asked for money, though we are usually generous. People also hated feeling that their empathy was being exploited by being coerced by direct encounters to be charitable. As Christmas draws closer, in smaller communities it is common for bell ringers to be local volunteers from churches, various social and business groups. Naturally some of these folks are personally known, so now social pressure is added to insure donating. To avoid those distasteful bell ringers without guilt I send my Christmas donation directly to the Salvation Army itself.

     Once while traveling west I stopped to visit a small, old wooden country church with a sign that said it was over one hundred years old. Entering I looked around, and my eyes were drawn to the rear of the church where against the back wall were leaning two old, unique collection baskets. At the ends of their wooden poles were faded, purple velvet bags attached with a bell at the bottom of each. In such a small country church where everyone knew everyone else, I easily could envision heads turning towards the sound of the bell on a collection bag rung by an usher either to awaken—or to persuade—a reluctant parishioner to give.

     Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher known for his defense of personal freedom of the individual. While Nietzsche rejected Christianity, I wonder if Jesus of Galilee would have agreed with the truth of this quotation of his: “Beggars should be abolished entirely! It is annoying to give to them, and it is annoying not to give them.”

Dear old and new friends,

    Last week’s reflection mentioned that one of the major obligations of Islam was to give alms, to be charitable to the needy. Recall in motion pictures of the Near East seeing ragged beggars pleading, “Alms, for the love of Allah,” which surely reminded devoted Muslims of their obligation to be unselfishly charitable.

    I’m going to piggyback on that Islamic obligation to reflect on a secret, that of being unselfish. But first a bit of frivolous background on piggybacking. More correctly the term is “pickaback” that dates back to the 16th century and refers to carrying a child or a person on your back. It may have begun with “pitching something or someone on your shoulders.” Our present corruption of piggyback began to occur in the late 18th century.  Pitching part of another’s burden upon your back is ironically a good example of being unselfish.

    By generously helping to carry part of another’s heavy burden you make their life easier. If the mostly invisible heavy burdens of poverty were instead clearly visible we might be more generous in our charity. The Teacher of Galilee calls his disciples, as did the Prophet Mohammed, to be unselfishly kindhearted to whoever is in need. I began this reflection promising the secret of how to be truly unselfish, which paradoxically is by being selfish!

    Genuine generosity always comes from an overflowing heart, while less than true generosity comes from a guilty heart. An example of authentic giving, if I recall correctly, is a Jewish New Year’s custom where the host prays that the New Year will overflow with good things and blessings as he pours wine into a glass. He continues praying and pouring until the glass reaches brimful. Here any non-Jewish guests at the table gasp as the host continues pouring until the glass overflows and wine spreads out like a scarlet lake on the table cloth. Graceful, true unselfishness is always a joyously, vivacious overflowing of a brim, full heart.

    True unselfishness requires being selfish! It demands being self-centered by treating yourself to something unnecessary but pleasurable—a new article of clothing, an enjoyable self-indulgence, a small extravagance or imprudent expenditure. By gifting yourself, strangely you protect yourself from the hazardous shadowy side of unselfishness—an unholy, fake martyrdom! You know the type: “O poor me, I’m bone tired doing for others, always neglecting my own needs. I’m the saintly, tirelessly caring mother, the hardworking father, who never gets a moment for myself.”

    If you desire to escape counterfeit martyrdom and to experience holy joyous unselfishness, occasionally go out and do something nice just for yourself!

Dear old and new friends,

    The crazy wisdom of money is that it’s not how much you have—but how you spend it. Elizabeth Dunn in The Science of Smarter Spending says investing some of your money on others, donations to charity and gifts to family and friends boosts your happiness.

    Just as success on Wall Street requires wise investing in the stock and bonds market, so happiness is the result of shrew investing in others. A successful Wall Street investor, however, often has to be a risk-taker and a gambler…and the same is true for anyone who gives away their hard earned or saved money. But investing it in gifts to others, even strangers, isn’t a careless throw of the dice.

    A young man I met while I was a State Prison chaplain had a minimum paying job after his parole but insisted on taking me out for a steak dinner. After the meal as we were leaving I saw the large cash gratuity he had left on the table and said, “That’s an extravagantly generous tip!” His face exploded in a broad expansive smile as he merrily said, “Just spreading the wealth around!” Without waiting for the waitress to return he started for the door. As I followed him out of the restaurant I couldn’t help but think that  here’s a guy with only a low, minimum wage paying job who has bigheartedly not only hosted me for dinner but also given a lavish gift to someone he will probably never see again.

    His offhand, playful phrase, “Just spreading the wealth around,” has remained with me as a lesson in the science of shrewd investing. It reminds me not to calculate down to the penny my generosity in money or in my time. And our model for being outrageously imprudent with our time and money? Our recklessly, crazy loving God!

    The generous are open handed. Penny pinchers are tightfisted and can’t restrict their tightness only to their money! Sadly, the stingy haven’t learned Emerson’s wisdom: “Sometimes money just costs too much!” To quote an old street beggar’s request,

                “Thanksgiving is coming, the geese are getting fat,
                        please put a penny in the old man’s hat;
                    if you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do,
                        if you haven’t a ha-penny, God bless you!”

    Now dear friend, as we conclude—a penny for your thoughts.