Being on the receiving end.

I wanted to address the whole being-the-alms-getter position.  I think, even though I think sharing and giving are good things, that giving has a power dynamic that is only obliquely acknowledged.  Having enough to share and sharing it gives the giver power over the receiver.[1]

I have noticed in one friend with very little that she gives freely when approached on the street, and I suspect that not only does she have a generous nature, but that it is very important for her sense of status to be able to continue to express that generous nature.  Those of us who invite her for coffee now try to find places where she is unlikely to be approached on the street, since the coffee out is already a stretch.

In the same vein, I have begun my active alms giving while living in a very low-income area in a subsidized location (ours is a small subsidy in comparison to others in the building, but it is a subsidy nonetheless).  I think I am using the alms giving as a way of maintaining my status as someone who doesn't need alms herself.  So, giving becomes a way of establishing power over others - maybe not particular others, but the others of a particular class, say.

Even though I find the power aspect of this disturbing, I am unwilling to give up the giving because of the immediate benefits I receive from it.[2]  Interestingly (to me), I don't donate to tax-deductible causes because the amount you can deduct is truly piffling, and there is no immediate (or ever, for that matter) sensation of having given somebody something they wanted.[3]

So, being able to receive things graciously is probably something that needs to be learned, and may be very hard to learn, indeed.  When it is something simple like someone buying our lunch at a girls day out because it was/is our birthday, we can tolerate that because it then becomes a debt that we can repay (if one has been invited to a party, one is honour-bound to repay with an invite back, yes/no?).  To receive something when one has no chance to make returns is very hard, and saying "what goes around, comes around" only goes so far towards reducing our discomfort.

So, I think that is some of my revulsion of feeling about the man I give alms to every Sunday.  I am disappointed that he is no longer able to interact with me as a peer, but has become a supplicant.  What else I could have expected of him, now that I have thought through some of the dynamics, I don't know.  I think that as well as the resources, I have also given him a psychological burden that he will have to struggle against.  Well.  Even with this additional burden to his stuckness, I don't think stopping the resources will be better help.  Whether he gets the help from me (& people like me), from social services, from his family/friends, or whoever, he is in such a stuck place now that I don't see how he can get out on his own.  Yes, the decision to leave the stuck place will always have to come from him and can't be applied from the outside like a poltice, but the getting out will require resources he doesn't have.  I still think I am doing less harm by contributing resources to help him survive until he can make that decision.

[1] - strangely enough, it doesn't work that way with tithes and taxes - perhaps because the payer has no choice - they must pay these whether they have "enough" or not.
[2] - not feeling compelled to buy every piece of advertised supposed status-boosting crap I see is a blessing in no uncertain terms.
[3] - we seek that feeling when we give birthday and other presents, and feel disappointed when we guess wrong and the gift is not valued for anything other than coming from a loved person.