Being the Gift Horse

 

I winced as I looked at her smiling, fat face.  Her cartoon resembled her and those like her.  As I flipped the newsletter over, I know it was intended for me to feel glad that “Amber found a home.”  (that is her real name, they didn’t change it.)  When I opened the newsletter, the non-cartoon, black and white photo of her new digs and her comrades also made me wince.  No smiling faces to the camera, just bare backsides … in a mud pen.

This is not an appeal from a charity in a Third World Country.  It is, believe it or not, a Pig Sanctuary.  How my name got on their mailing list I will never know.  They are on the west coast doing their pot-bellied pig rescue efforts and wanting my east coast money to shore them up.  Not happening.

My neighbor sometimes has trouble starting the wood pile fire in the back so he is counting on me to come over there weekly and bring a paper bag FULL of charity appeals that I get in the mail so we can start the “camp fire.”  Someone must have sold my name on the lists under the headings of “Religious” and “Animal Lovers.”  For your entertainment, I will tell you “who” is after me:  the Salesians, the Franciscans, the Oblates, the Native American charities, the charities that feed children, the charities that rescue dogs and cats on Long Island (where I do NOT live) and save animals indigenous to other continents, the people that train dogs for veterans, and all veterans and police charities, local helicopter services, fire departments, and various politicians.  It is not an exaggeration to say I get about 20 pieces of charity junk mail each week.

A Guilt Gift is sometimes enclosed.  The agenda there is that if the sender puts a gift in, you may somehow feel morally obliged to contribute back to their charity to offset their costs.  Honestly, that part of my moral consciousness died last year.  Finally.  All of this unwanted mail coming to my box like a trojan horse with Greek soldiers hidden inside has worn away at my moral veneer. The guilt gifts are predictable:  It may be a nickel taped to the letter urging you to return it.  It may be a fake two-dollar bill folded so you can see it in the window of the envelope.  Money is, after all, a great motivator.  holy water from a religious site, a medal with a saint on it, a religious symbol appropriate to whatever season is nearest (Christmas or Easter are common).  Sometimes They send me note pads, with or without my name, and often they are very cutely designed.  And have I got address labels.  I could wallpaper my bathroom with all the free address labels I’ve received.  Lastly, there are The Mass cards.

I guess I took it for granted that everyone knew what a Mass card was until my friend at work said, “what is that?”  I explained:  It is a card you get from a charity that you send to a friend or loved one and inside it is the inscription:  A Mass is being said for you on (insert religious holiday name here) at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Alps (I made that up).  So instead of you going to the grocery store or pharmacy to purchase a card for $5, you send $5, 10 or $20 to the charity itself as a donation to their ministry (feeding some people perhaps in a Third World Country or USA inner city).  Let me be clear:  You don’t have to request these cards.  Once you get on someone’s mailing list, they keep coming and coming and coming in packs of three or four.  Some of them are nice, some of them are too glitzy for my taste.  But “I hate to throw them out” so I have a few boxes of them, organized by category … because I don’t have anything better to do with my time(?).  Mass cards can be for birthdays, Mother’s/Father’s Day, Christmas, Easter, Thinking of You, or sympathy cards.  To be clear:  in order for me to use all the sympathy cards I got in the mail from the charities, Everyone I have ever known or met in my life would have to simultaneously drop dead, and I would STILL have at least 5 left over cards in my Mass card collection at home.

Money is important.  How we utilize it is also very important.  So how can we choose what charities to support financially?  First, I eliminate almost anyone whom I suppose already gets government funding.  As a former worker in a 501(c)3 charity, I want to support the underdog, the “little guy.”  Oftentimes the smaller charities are able to accomplish more with a dollar because they don’t get strangulated in red tape.  Although, there are a few donations I’ve made to illness-related charities in memory or honor of a friend who struggled with that illness.  Next, I look for the Better Business bureau symbol or the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability symbol - I want some indication that the charity actually exists and that someone holds them accountable for how money is used. Then I pick one for each month of the year and write the names on an index card to tuck into the back of my checkbook as a reminder when I’m writing out monthly bills to be faithful to those who need me.

It has been said that God cannot be outdone in generosity.  It is for that reason that even when times are tough and the take-home pay barely seems to take you home, we should remain generous.  We should remember those who have less than us:  people who will never own a vehicle or rent/own a home; children that were born into tragic circumstances; people who have put their lives on the line so that we may live in a free country; animals that rely on the compassion of humans to protect them from worse humans.  The need is endless.  But if each of us remains faithful to whatever need  touches our heart, then we will make the world a better place, one check at a time... even for pot-bellied pigs.  

#######