Give til it feels

Why do we give?

Incident #1

On the road, which is where we seem to encounter the Trickster most (see Hermes). I am approached by a attractive, middle-class-looking man who stumbles over his "pitch". He claims (I don't hear the details) that he has had his possessions stolen from the back of his pickup. The fact that it took him a few minutes to get to the point (asking for money) lends verisimilitude to his approach. Much to my wife's annoyance, I gave him a small percentage of what he was asking for ($5). I rarely give money, not having all that much, but that doesn't soothe my wife, when she finds it necessary to balance to the penny.


Incident #2

I need to go downtown to Home Depot to get banister hardware for the rental house across town. At the last minute, I decide to take the turnpike. I stop at the Kum & Go (a real place) to get a soda (another pet peeve of my wife).

This Indian man asks if I can give him a ride to Tulsa. Turns out he's Oglala Sioux with long pig-tails and a gap-toothed grin. I tell him 'm going downtown; he offers to pay for the ride, but I tell him he doesn't have to. I don't give rides, mostly. I question my judgement as he gets in my truck.

On the way to our destination, he tells me that he's been visiting his son in Stroud, who is incarcerated in a juvenile detention center. He's 14 and been sneaking out of his mom's house to go get in trouble. Many Native kids in his age-group are addicted to meth, the scourge of our state. My passenger is trying to get custody--his mother doesn't want to deal with him any longer and complicating the issue is that she is a different tribe.

I drop my passenger off at his apartment complex (Christ says that if you are pressed for a mile, go two). I tell him I'll pray for his them. The really interesting bit is that this man was "praying to Holy Spirit" for a ride because he was tired, having walked from Stroud. Then I show up. Enough to make you believe in God. 

Analysis:  

The first incident involved money and had a negative feeling--I felt awkward/embarrassed.  I suspect that is one of the feelings that made the Levites etc. (in the Good Samaritan parable) pass the possibly dead man.

The second made me and my wife feel good. 

The only difference, aside from the skill of the recipient (after all, there may have been no 14 year old), was that the second was slightly more inconvenient. Time is money, my wife's attitude toward money notwithstanding. Is $5 equivalent to how long it takes in gas and time to got from the interstate to an apartment complex?

No, I think the feeling is emotion (aside from whether the guy needed $5). The first guy probably had a bad delivery because he was ashamed. The next guy who asks for money will get a blessing instead of cash, of which I have too little. St Peter said something similar somewhere.