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PDF versionToxic charity vs. redemptive charity
by Maureen Fiedler on Nov. 18, 2011
This is the season for giving. There are parish food drives, adopt-a-family programs and toys for needy children. Many of us jump on board as enthusiastic givers.
But one of my guests this week on Interfaith Voices, Bob Lupton, says many charitable efforts hurt people more than they help people. He discusses this idea in a new book with the provocative title Toxic Charity. And I have to say, he made me think and recall some of the better efforts I've seen.
His basic thesis is this: Givers almost always feel good. But receivers have, at best, mixed feelings. Too many are like the parents he has seen in homes when a "gift-giving family" delivers toys to children at Christmastime. The children are excited, the mother is gracious even if she feels a bit distant, but the father is often absent because he feels that this action exposes his inability to provide for the family.
Lupton speaks from long personal experience. He has lived in the inner city of Atlanta for more than 30 years.
What he advocates is a system for charity that takes account of these feelings and establishes programs that respect human dignity. For example, he favors establishing thrift stores where recipients can find bargains for clothes or toys, purchase them and give them to their children themselves. In soup kitchens, he favors inviting recipients to come to the other side of the table and help serve the food. And he says that volunteers might sit down and have their meal with those who are served.
I mentioned to him the process long used by the Quest for Peace in Nicaragua. Clothing, household goods, etc. are not given away, but sold at low prices. The money is then used to establish a local fund, and recipients meet and decide what common projects can use the funds. In that way, clothing has helped build schools and clinics and repaired roads. It also develops community, organizing and budgeting skills. Lupton calls this "redemptive charity."
Needless to say, his basic approach does not apply in crisis situations like natural disasters or devastating fires. People at those times simply need to survive, and are usually grateful for any help. But it does apply in cases of chronic and long-term need.
To hear my interview with Bob Lupton, here's the link. The audio will be posted by about 3 p.m. Eastern time today.
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A program for homeless women
A program for homeless women with children in Youngstown called Beatitude House has a Santa's Workshop for children in their housing program. The items are donated, and the children "shop" for gifts for their moms and siblings, then wrap the gifts themselves to give at Christmas. This is a variation on your idea and gives kids at least a sense of pride in choosing what they think their moms will like and wrapping and giving the gifts to their moms on their own. You can read more about Beatitude House and its efforts, created and run by the Youngstown Ursuline Sisters since 1991, at http://www.beatitudehouse.com/
restorative dignity is the
restorative dignity is the greatest gift, the highest charity, rewarding deeply all parties, as Dorothy Day long ago taught us. Personal relationship, committed and long term, are all that last, as Tom Merton wrote in his letter to a young activist. Sacred writers of sacred Roman Catholic texts we are permitted only to forget.
Welfare and food stamps was designed to tear families apart and profit big agrobusiness, to stop a revolution for social equality in its tracks.
Now we find even the Black Panther created School Breakfast program is greatly diminished.
you know, I keep finding the
you know, I keep finding the polite way to slip someone a 20 or 50 pesos bill without offending anyone, and without anyone else noticing, you know, like, hey, just shaking hands over here, ok? Yeah, it's a greeting thing, and normally people go along with it.
So, like, you know how new Spanish learners (or French as well) think it's really cool to use the TU form, that this, or so they have been wrongly taught, indicates deep and abiding friendship and intimacy?
Not so from the gringo.
From us it indicates we lack respect for the person we are addressing, who truly truly really appreciates the use of the usted form with all sincere and understated reverence and respect and honoring; this is so much more "friendly" than charging in boldly with a tu.
People, if they feel confident with you, will try to explain that my use of the tu is calling another person a child, an insult, setting them on a lower plane, disrespectful, toxic.
So always use the usted until REQUIRED to use TU under greatest protest, and still use usted. This develops greater intimacy and trust, that you always will honor this person and mean no harm and are safe from the decades of insult which we customarily throw around by our very attitude.
Make a point to say usted, and wish everyone you pass a very good day, and ask their permission to walk by, and wow, will you ever win friends and influence people!
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