Transients and charity

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roger12345
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
R

Roger12345

Guest
I have a moral question maybe some of you can help me out with. Every summer the town I live in is swarmed with transients. I get asked for money from people who are younger and in better health than I am. I have severe sleep apnea and I’m tired all the time, my joints hurt, I work 12 hour night shifts. I know that almost every page of the Bible has verses commending alms to the poor. Am I in the wrong to feel resentful when someone who is younger and in better shape than me asks me for money?
 
Our feelings aren’t sins, it’s all about how we respond to them. Your resentment is pretty normal, especially under circumstances such as yours.

That being said, try not to judge them too harshly. You don’t know their story. Some may have pretty good reasons, others might just not be as strong as you.

I try not to give money. I buy food or gift cards for groceries, but I rarely give cash. But that’s just me. If it makes you feel better, you could always donate to the nearest soup kitchen, warming station, or backpack program.
 
I have a moral question maybe some of you can help me out with. Every summer the town I live in is swarmed with transients. I get asked for money from people who are younger and in better health than I am. I have severe sleep apnea and I’m tired all the time, my joints hurt, I work 12 hour night shifts. I know that almost every page of the Bible has verses commending alms to the poor. Am I in the wrong to feel resentful when someone who is younger and in better shape than me asks me for money?
Not necessarily, but we have no way of knowing their stories either. I have worked with so many drug addicts who make up lies to get money, I just won’t do it. If someone is hungry I would rather give them food (I keep snack bars in the car) or drive down the street and buy a burger. If they need services, I will give them a list of addresses and phone numbers to services in the area that I am willing to fund.

The most important thing to do for people who are begging is to pray for them, and ask that they find the pearl of Great Price!

There have also been a rash of attacks on citizens refusing to give money, including people getting stabbed or mugged, so I go out of my way to avoid engaging them.
 
Am I in the wrong to feel resentful when someone who is younger and in better shape than me asks me for money?
Your feeling is just a response to the situation. It is neither good or bad. How you respond can be. I do not give cash because, in our area anyway, there are many that are just scams. I will offer a local location where food/shelter/aid can be obtained.
 
Am I in the wrong to feel resentful when someone who is younger and in better shape than me asks me for money?
I’d say you are entitled to feel annoyed and yes, resentful.
I sometimes think the worst off in society are the hardworking poor. The poor who have no experience of earning an income or working hard, will stay spoilt and expecting handouts for the rest of their lives. Whilst people like you struggle just to pay the rent and survive from week to week.
I wouldn’t give them money. Food only.
 
I think it’s natural to be annoyed. As other posters have said I would caution against making assumptions about people’s health. Unless you’re a doctor and examined them in a clinic. Mental disease manifests in strange ways and physical conditions don’t always show on the surface.
 
I have to stomp on my resentment, because I’m widowed with children in an affluent area so I look like I could give handouts. I tried buying food and was cursed in return.
So I support the local social outreach programs the best I can instead, figuring their deacons and social workers know better what to do practically.
 
I look to Christ’s words. The Good Samaritan did not hand the “man beside the road” a few coins and go on his way. The Good Samaritan took this man to a facility that could treat his condition, provide food and shelter. The Samaritan made a generous donation and said they could contact him if they needed more donations.

We, in turn, are not all called to the same ministry. Some of us will be the Samaritan, making donations and supporting the shelters around is while others will be called to open/run/volunteer at those shelters.
 
There are young people who like a parasitic lifestyle.
They think the world owes them. The world, the society, the authorities, parents, wife’s parents, owe them.
I believe that the authorities, society, health care, and the authorities are really obliged to take care of single mothers, mothers with many children, orphans, people with disabilities.
You can’t throw them out to their own devices.
Unfortunately, in many developing countries, such people are left to their own devices.
Children are dying from lack of medicines, and seniors are dying from malnutrition.
Even healthy people work there and survive with great difficulty.
But I think people in a rich country are asking for money because they’re either hippies, or alcoholics , drug addicts, or they just like to make money like that.
By the way, during the Soviet Union, when I was a child, the people were imprisoned for parasitism.
Inspection caught parasites in cinemas (during the work hours) on the beach, in the entertainment places. In the beginning people received a reprimand, fines, and then could go to jail.😊
In the North Caucasus, there is a small people - Chechens.
Chechens in the entire history have respect for the rebels, truth seekers, fugitives, they took them into their communities and helped them.
The only thing that despise the Chechens is the parasitic way of life of alcoholics and drug addicts.
Chechens have big families, work at building sites, go on earnings abroad(to Siberia, Kazakhstan) The only thing despised in their community is a “parasite man.”
Sometimes they just steal alcoholics from train stations of neighbours towns and take them to their mountains villages, and there forced them to work.
Without dispensaries, without clinical intervention, mountain Chechens can change the life of any alcoholic in a short time - by the labor therapy and iron prison discipline.
It doesn’t look humane, but I just want to show you how parasitism is treated in different societies.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top