Just Have To Wrap The Gifts

Friday, December 20, 2013

I realized about the time I went to All-School Mass today that I have already done the song I picked this morning, "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen".  I remembered (and how English teacher-y is this?) because I remembered thinking the comma looked odd, even though it made the title finally make better sense.

So instead today, I am going to talk about a part of the bishop's homily.

When priests speak to a mass of primarily students, especially small students, you get some kind of little story.  Which makes you wonder a bit what Jesus thought of us.  Just saying.

There was a clear moral to this story about a little girl asking Santa for 50 gifts so that she could give them away, and it might even have been a true story.  That would account for the interlude that neither I nor the teacher next to me could find the moral significance of.

The little girl really wants to wrap the presents before she brings them to the charity.  None of the popular charities want this, of course, because they need to check the gifts and wrapped gifts are less useful to them.  The bishop kept stressing that the little girl wanted to wrap them herself, so she kept looking for some place that would take her wrapped presents.

And while the little girl is way ahead of the curve for most kids, I can't help seeing untapped potential in the bishop's interlude about wrapping - namely, a chance to point out one of the main things that is wrong with charity in this country.

The other main thing wrong with charity in this country is exemplified beautifully by the "A Donation Has Been Made in Your Name" gifts I received from several students.  Each and every one donated money not to CASA, my favorite charity, or Some Other Place, with which our school has a special relationship, or even the school itself.  They donated to "The St. Anne's Teacher Stocking Fund".  And the number who did so makes me think the school encouraged it or at least provided a convenient way to do so.

So people give to charity, but the most money tends to go to "rich people" charities -- arts foundations and fancy private schools rather than feeding the hungry and homeless shelters.  And don't get me wrong - I work in the arts and at a fancy private school.  I appreciate people giving to those places, but I can't help thinking that giving the money even to the Giving Fields, a charity that runs through our school to provide food for soup kitchens, would have been a better use of that charitable impulse.  Objectively, I didn't need the glitter-tastic gift the Home and School Association bought with that money as much as the people who hang around my neighborhood because it's near Some Other Place.

Back to the girl who wanted to wrap gifts so much she almost didn't give gifts to sick and needy kids.  Do I need to say more than that?  Again, that girl seems way ahead of the curve, but still.  We think about charity in terms of what it will do for us.  We think about what we want to do and give, not what's needed.

We don't ask what's needed, we decide what we are willing/want to do.

That girl (and, more seriously, her parents) didn't think about calling to ask what toys they needed at each of the places she called -- whether they tended to have more boys or girls toys that they needed, whether there were wish lists that the kids had made out, or if there were any toys or kinds of toys they should avoid (like ones that drained batteries quickly for poor families or ones that plug into walls that homeless kids don't have).  She and her parents thought about what would make them feel good - picking out some fun toys that she would like and wrapping them up.

There are rewards to charity, and I certainly don't want to demonize people feeling those warm and fuzzies...but don't prioritize how great it'll make you feel over what people in need actually well...need.  And, there's no way to sugarcoat this: ask them.  Don't assume.