A man came up to the window to ask for money. I know there are those who do this as a scam. So what should you do?

This is a post I've been running occasionally for over a decade. I now serve the poor by volunteering with the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. But my first exposure to deep thinking about the poor and charity was in the incidents I describe below.

Today I'm running it because it is perfect for reflection during Lent. As you can see below, St. John Vianney was a major influence in changing my heart and mind toward the poor. Not that I don't still struggle with the issue, but every time I come back to the quote I feature I am reminded of what matters. 

St. John Vianney, pray for us!

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When I was talking to my sister about this some time ago, she had the short answer. "Pull out your wallet and give them money."

I don't tend to have cash but I have begun carrying Subway gift cards for $15. Subway shops are everywhere and they can get at least couple of good meals with that. 

For the longer, more anecdotal version, and the answer to the question "what if it is a scam," just keep on readin' ...

Photo from Barcelona Photoblog

As my long-suffering husband well knows, from the fact that when he gave a handful of change to an Australian man sitting outside a London tube station years ago ... the man shouted after our family, "God bless you mate! Thank you!" My husband muttered, under his breath, "Don't thank me, thank her; I had nothing to do with it" as I gave him a thank you hug. This didn't compare to later on when he would be driving with three people in the car all urging him to roll down the window and hand out granola bars.

GIVING TO THE HOMELESS, FACE TO FACE

The first time I ever saw a beggar was in Paris, 18 years ago. She was across the street and Tom said, "Don't look at her." Of course, I did and she began screaming invective and shaking her fist at me. It's a good thing my French wasn't very fluent or I'm sure my ears would have burned. Everywhere we went there were beggars. It was deeply troubling for someone like me who had never seen such a thing before. Tom, whose family lived in London for several years, was more blasé. He taught me to ignore them and that they were making plenty of money off of the population at large. I did make him give to a couple of WWII veterans who were playing music for their coins but at least they had sacrificed something for their country ... they had done something to deserve our charity.

I wasn't Christian then; I wasn't even sure if God existed. Nothing other than popular thought occurred to me in those situations. That was saved for 15 years later in 2001 when we went back to Paris and London with the girls. I had converted by then, we attended Mass weekly, and they went to Catholic school with religion lessons every day. It was fairly common to see the homeless on street corners but we were insulated by the car and traffic flow. These up close encounters with beggars in Europe were different. Tom and I gave the standard "making money off the crowd" explanation but it didn't sit very well, especially with the Christian precepts that had taken hold by then.

Then, one evening, I read this quote.

There are those who say to the poor that they seem to look to be in such good health: "You are so lazy! You could work. You are young. You have strong arms."

You don't know that it is God's pleasure for this poor person to go to you and ask for a handout. You show yourself as speaking against the will of God.

There are some who say: "Oh, how badly he uses it!" May he do whatever he wants with it! The poor will be judged on the use they have made of their alms, and you will be judged on the very alms that you could have given but haven't.

St. John Vianney

You certainly couldn't get much clearer than those words. St. John Vianney covered pretty much every objection I ever thought of for giving to the poor. That was my wake-up call and the end of ignoring beggars. We were supplied with handfuls of coins that were distributed at large as we went through the subway stations.

When I got home I stocked the car with granola bars and bottles of water. I passed them out at every street corner we stopped at. I never have any cash on me and they almost always had signs saying "Will work for food" so it seemed a good match.

Then Dallas passed a law against any panhandling on street corners and, for the most part, the homeless disappeared from sight. I had gotten used to being on the lookout for people to give my granola bars to and now the corners seemed very empty.

About that time, I was the leader of a Catholic women's group that met weekly. One evening our discussion became a debate over two strategies of giving to the homeless. One group believed in giving to people as they were encountered. The other countered with stories of scam artists and believed in giving to organizations who would distribute goods and cash in the most beneficial way to the needy. Two things stuck with me after that meeting though. The first was that my friend, Rita, said she was troubled by those who didn't want to give face to face because "they don't know what blessings they may be depriving themselves of." Once again I remembered St. John Vianney's quote.

I also thought about the very day before when I encountered a homeless man, gave him some cash, and later was extremely glad that I did ... because I'm still not sure who it was that I gave that cash to.

The second thing occurred to me as I listened to the debate. Jesus never said anything about helping the poor by giving to the local temple or soup kitchen. He said:

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me."

Then the righteous will answer him and say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?"

And the king will say to them in reply, "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."

Matthew 25: 35-40

Tom and I do support organized charities and I know they reach farther than I ever could personally. This is not an argument against those organizations. However, I think that we cannot rest with those contributions. I believe that if we have a personal encounter with the needy it is because they have been sent to us for their good and our own. If we turn them away, then we are turning Christ Himself away and what blessings are we sending away with Him?

This was reinforced for me during a retreat I attended later. Somehow the debate over how to give to the homeless came up along those old familiar lines, not just once but twice. Each time I trotted out my St. John Vianney quote. Then my friend, Mauri, said that when she looked at those unfortunates she saw people she knew. For instance, she has a schizophrenic nephew who doesn't want to take his meds so he has been found wandering only in his boxers in a Chicago suburb. A confused old lady at the bank reminded her of her mother and Mauri found a discreet way to help her while preserving her dignity. She reminded me of the worth and dignity of each of these people. She later sent me this story which is the perfect example of looking past the surface to the real person that is there in front of us.

Today at the post office I saw this man going through the garbage -- I think looking for food as he was going through a discarded fast food bag and picked out left over bun from the bag, emptied the bag of the other garbage, and then used the bag to neatly wrap up the left over bun and then placed it in his satchel. You could tell that he still had his pride as he looked well kept, although worn and a bit "dusty". He was not begging in any way. Just walking through the strip center where the post office was.

I wanted to help as I sensed that he was hungry, but he was not asking for help and he did not approach me in anyway. I was so worried to bruise his pride, but could not stand the thought of him only having the leftover bun for food. I got out of my car with $5 and asked him if he was hungry. He said he was fine but hesitantly. I gave him the money and told him that there were many times when I was hungry but didn't have the cash on me to go through McDonalds or grab a sandwich. I told him to take it for when he might need it. I don't think I hurt his pride. His eyes were so kind.

I only wish I had asked his name ... He looked like he might have been mid 60s. I should have given him more money. I can't get him out of my mind. He could have been someone's grandfather, father, etc.

I am so grateful to Mauri for bringing me to this phase in my awareness of the homeless. Each of them was some mother's baby, a tiny toddler learning to walk, a laughing boy or girl at school. We must remember that when we are looking at these people who can seem so frightening or strange or manipulative. I pray that someday I can look at these people and find my vision is perfect ... I hope that someday I can look at a homeless person and see Jesus Himself. In this quest I think we can not do better than to take the advice of someone who achieved perfect vision and sought out her beloved Jesus in the homeless.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

There's Nothing Like Spaghetti Fresh Off the Tree!

 I hate practical jokes so you may guess that I'm not crazy about April Fools Day. However, this classic joke from the BBC is an all-time favorite with me.

With the unusually mild winter, we were able to have our first harvest of spaghetti this morning. Seriously, there’s nothing like spaghetti fresh off the tree!

Northern California’s spaghetti is a legacy of the Swiss-Italians who settled the San Francisco Bay Area in the late19th century, operating dairy ranches and vineyards. Naturally, when they came to California, these pioneers brought their beloved spaghetti.

The most common vinestock of Spaghetti trees in Northern California, (Iocari stultus var. flicrus ), traces its lineage to the shores of Lake Lugano in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino. This bountiful tree was first planted here in the early 1890s during the founding of the Italian Swiss Colony in Sonoma County.

Last year’s cold, frosty winter mostly left us with capellini and spaghettini, if spring continues like this, we might even see Vermicelli before summer!

We’re quite happy for the joy our little tree provides every year at this time.

Wikipedia

This April Fools joke was a 3 minute broadcast from the BBC in 1957, a time when spaghetti was relatively unknown in England. Read more here.

The Frugal Meal

This is from J.R.'s Art Place where he says:

The Frugal Meal by Rose Hartwell, 1903, showing an immigrant family sitting down to a dinner of spaghetti. Note the image of St. Anthony of Padua on the wall!

It seemed the perfect accompaniment to the story about the Spaghetti Trees!

Around Here: Dickens and the Sandwich

Having revisited Dickens and Boxers last Friday made me remember another thing I love and its connection with Dickens — sandwiches. This is also from several years ago but well worth revisiting. At least it was for me!

Sandwiches and Dickens

I was reading Barnaby Rudge and was startled by seeing a sandwich mentioned:

He was not without some refreshment during the long lonely hours; generally carrying in his pocket a sandwich of bread and meat, and a small flask of wine.

Now I know sandwiches were invented some time ago but I hadn't come across them in fiction this old, especially as a reflection of casual everyday life. And this book was set around the time of our Revolutionary War so I had 1776 firmly in mind.

Did they eat sandwiches then?

Finishing up Barnaby (not bad, not bad at all), I picked up The Pickwick Papers for a bit of light bedtime humor.

I was stunned to find ... another sandwich in Mr. Jingle's shocking but funny story:

Heads, heads — take care of your heads!... Five children — mother — tall lady, eating sandwiches — forgot the arch — crash — knock — children look round — mother's head off — sandwich in her hand—no mouth to put it in — head of a family off—shocking, shocking!

This made Tom look up the origin date of the sandwich which, of course, no one knows. The famous story about the Earl of Sandwich, all honor to this lazy but tidy card player (bread kept the meat grease off his hands and cards) who invented one of my favorite foods, is placed in the late 1700s.

Of course, sandwiches were around before then but they weren't called sandwiches. They were known as "meat and bread" or "bread and cheese." It is when the name "sandwich" became commonly used that is interesting. And then we have this bit of evidence:

That respectable body, of which I have the honour of being a member, affords every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty, perhaps, of the first men in the kingdom, in point of fashion and fortune, supping at little tables covered with a napkin, in the middle of a coffee-room, upon a bit of cold meat, or a sandwich, and drinking a glass of punch.

Edward Gibbon, journal entry, November 24, 1762

So that's all right then, for Dickens use in Barnaby Rudge. And it turns out that Dickens had his own sandwich memories, though this one doesn't seem happy at all:

A longer time afterwards he recollected the stage-coach journey, and said in one of his published papers that never had he forgotten, through all the intervening years, the smell of the damp straw in which he was packed and forwarded like game, carriage-paid. “There was no other inside passenger, and I consumed my sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained hard all the way, and I thought life sloppier than I expected to find it.”

Dickens writing of his journey when he was 10
to join his family in their new home,

Life of Charles Dickens by John Foster

I found a few more of Dickens' sandwiches when I was looking around.

Great Expectations: My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched, standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket flask of sherry (he seemed to bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he had made for me.

Bleak House: "My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "you have four schools this afternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich."

Mugby Junction: "Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh, crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision."

Uncommercial Traveller: Between the pieces, we almost all of us went out and refreshed. Many of us went the length of drinking beer at the bar of the neighbouring public-house, some of us drank spirits, crowds of us had sandwiches and ginger-beer at the refreshment-bars established for us in the Theatre. The sandwich--as substantial as was consistent with portability, and as cheap as possible--we hailed as one of our greatest institutions. It forced its way among us at all stages of the entertainment, and we were always delighted to see it; its adaptability to the varying moods of our nature was surprising; we could never weep so comfortably as when our tears fell on our sandwich; we could never laugh so heartily as when we choked with sandwich; Virtue never looked so beautiful or Vice so deformed as when we paused, sandwich in hand, to consider what would come of that resolution of Wickedness in boots, to sever Innocence in flowered chintz from Honest Industry in striped stockings. When the curtain fell for the night, we still fell back upon sandwich, to help us through the rain and mire, and home to bed.

Dickens must have enjoyed a good sandwich as much as I do. I'll have one of those universal French Refreshment sangwiches for lunch, please!

Around Here: Dickens and Boxer

This is from some time ago but never fails to amuse me.

Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; now, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now, going round and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for the night; now, getting up again, and taking that nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if he had just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round trot, to keep it.

Courtesy of Project Gutenberg where
this novella is available free in a variety of formats

One of my favorite bits in the beginning of The Cricket on the Hearth is accuracy of Charles Dickens' description of the Perrybingles' dog, Boxer. Ours is a "double Boxer" household and ours are almost constantly displaying some of those very attributes.

Chances are that the Boxers of Dickens' day didn't look precisely like those we have today, but they surely acted like them!

This article shows current Boxers and if you scroll down you can see how they probably looked in Dickens' day.

The Grill

The Grill
painted by Karin Jurick

I love paintings showing the details of ordinary, modern life. No one did it better than Karin Jurick.

Cooking and the Ballet

Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.

Julia Child

Sometimes I think of this quote when I am cooking. Then I think of how many other things in my life are considered evanescent and how I enjoy them.

And the Winner Is — 1937

 Our family is working our way through Oscar winners and whichever nominees take our fancy. Also as they are available, since these early films continued to be hard to find.

This was a delightfully mixed bag ranging from drama to screwball comedy. All of them were entertaining enough to make a good evening's viewing. 

WINNER

The story of a legendary musical producer whose unerring eye for the heart of a performance allows a variety of well-known entertainers to flourish. Unfortunately, he also had a perfectionist side which sent the bills sky high and an eye for beautiful women which caused problems for his marriage.

We were surprised at how good this was — light, funny dialogue and William Powell's charisma carry the day. I could also see how it would have appealed to a 1936 audience who were probably sorely in need of fantasy — the shows were extravagent visual fantasies that would have been a wonderful break from Depression life.

 NOMINEES

Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.

Frank Capra with essentially an early version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It's okay but just watch Mr. Smith instead.

A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.

This has over-the-top drama, lots and lots of songs, too much opera, and a spectacular earthquake and subsequent fire. It also has a moral battle between Spencer Tracy as the priest and Clark Gable as the bad boy. It was entertaining the whole way.

When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication’s frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. 

William Powell and Myrna Loy made 14 films together and this is a sterling example of their versatility, talent and charisma. The film itself was a good screwball comedy but not enough to make it better than the 1937 Best Picture rightly went to The Great Zeigfeld, which also starred ... Powell and Loy.

The exciting story of Dr. Manette, who escapes the horrors of the infamous Bastille prison in Paris. The action switches between London and Paris on the eve of the revolution where we witness ‘the best of times and the worst of times’ - love, hope, the uncaring French Aristocrats and the terror of a revolutionary citizen’s army intent on exacting revenge.

Here's the one that should have won the Oscar. Until we watched it we agreed with The Ziegfeld Follies as Best Picture. This blew our socks off. It was practically perfect in every way and made me a Ronald Colman fan for life. (My full review here.)

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All the Oscar viewing is here.

Julie and Scott just arrived on Earth. Scott thinks the thermostat is set too high. Julie is frustrated when a seagull takes her sandwich with no reprisal. Who is managing this place? Then they realize — Earth is wild and does what it wants.

 In Episode 352 of A Good Story is Hard to find we discuss Ad Limina by Cyril Jones-Kellett.

The Solemnity of the Annunciation

It's a solemnity! No fasting!

Leonardo da Vinci. The Annunciation.

On today's feast the Church celebrates the mystery of the Incarnation and, at the same time, the vocation of Our Lady. It was her faithful response to the angel's message, her fiat, that began the work of redemption...

The setting of this feast day, March 25th, corresponds to Christmas. In addition, there is ancient tradition that the creation of the world and the commencement and conclusion of the Redemption all happened to coincide at the vernal equinox.

As the greatest proof of his love for us, God had his only Son become man to save us from our sins. In this way Jesus merited for us the dignity of becoming children of God. His arrival signaled the fullness of time. St. Paul puts it quite literally that Jesus was born of a woman. (cf The Navarre Bible, Romans and Galatians, note to Gal 4:4) Jesus did not come to earth as a spirit. He truly became man, like one of us. He received his human nature from Our Lady's immaculate womb. Today's feat, therefore, is really in honor of Jesus and Mary. That is why Fr. Luis de Granada has pointed out: It is reasonable to consider, first and foremost, the purity and sanctity of the Woman whom God chose 'ab aeterno' to give form to his humanity.

When God decided to create the first man, he first took care to create a fitting environment for him, which was the Garden of Eden. It makes sense, then, that when God made ready to send his Son, the Christ, he likewise prepared for him a worthy environment, namely, the body and soul of the Blessed Virgin. (Life of Jesus Christ, I)

As we consider the significance of this Solemnity, we find Jesus very closely united to Mary. When the Blessed Virgin said Yes, freely, to the plans revealed to her by the Creator, the divine Word assumed a human nature: a rational soul and a body, which was formed in the most pure womb of Mary. The divine nature and the human were united in a single Person: Jesus Christ, true God and, thenceforth, true Man; the only-begotten and eternal Son of the Father, and from that moment on, as Man, the true son of Mary. ... (J. Escriva, Friends of God, 274)

In Conversation with God,
Vol. 6: Special Feasts: January to June

There is more from this reflection featured in this previous post for this solemnity.

Annunciation by illustrator Edmund Dulac, 1916.

The Annunciation by Luc-Olivier Merson