Ungrateful.

I've been sitting at my computer for several minutes, trying to think of a way to start this entry that feels right. Trouble is, very little about that about which I am about to write feels right. Okay, that sentence felt a little bit right, in a playful, former English major, stupid-nerdy sort of way.

But really though, this whole thing just plain feels wrong.

If you're a homeless beggar, trying to get a few dollars for your next meal or your next night of lodging, I am probably the easiest target in the whole wide world.

Feels wrong: writing in such a way that suggests that homeless people have "targets." Moving on...

If a homeless person (or someone conducting themself in such a way that suggests that they're homeless) approaches me and asks me for money, I'm going to give them money. I've done some calculations, and of the times I've been approached by anyone who fits that description and been asked for money, I've given them money 6,438% of the time.

For whatever reason, I simply cannot get past a humanistic knee-jerk reaction to the situation, and the money comes out of my pocket and exchanges hands.

Sounds harmless enough, right? If you're looking for all the wrong-feeling things I promised at the beginning of this post, just stick with me.

I have so little resistance to this kind of situation that I have made attempts to avoid people who I suspect will ask me for money. That's so wrong. Three such instances stick out in my mind as I write this.

One:

It was 2004, and the Minnesota Timberwolves were playing the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, where they would eventually fall an injured point guard away from an NBA Finals berth and a probable NBA championship. I had tickets to game one of the series. I had also attended game seven of the previous series against the Sacramento Kings, which will likely stand for the rest of my life as the best basketball game I've ever seen in person.

I was walking from where I had parked to the Target Center, where a young and tall black man yelled to get my attention as I was crossing the street. He was thin and thin-faced, with prominent cheekbones and he smelled like cigarette smoke. He asked me if I could spare some money. I had a wallet with a bunch of money in it. I knew that if I took out the wallet, he would be able to get a much higher percentage of it than I would normally give in this kind of situation. I didn't want him to see that I had a wallet or that it contained a pretty decent amount of money, so I tried to tell him that I had to get going and made an attempt at leaving. I'm enough of a pushover that a four year-old kid could have badgered me into staying and giving him money.

He was persistent. I kept trying to reject his advances, speaking politely and addressing him as "sir." He thought it racist and patronizing, telling me "don't call me 'sir,' motherfucker." That pretty well pissed me off. Even in my angered state, feeling far more contempt than empathy for this man, I eventually dug a few dollars out of my wallet and handed them to him, then making my way to the game.

Two:

About six months ago, I was driving to a coworkers house to cook dinner, drink margaritas and hang out. I had to stop for a red light which is normally almost always green, only ever changed by the very infrequent crosstraffic stopping at it for a minute or two. The reason I remember which light it was and how it's almost always green going that particular way is that I saw a homeless guy from a distance, hoping I wouldn't get stopped by the light and have to interact with him. That's just wrong. I stopped at the light and he made his way to my driver's-side window.

I opened the window and he asked me for seven dollars with which he told me he was going to buy a chicken dinner. There was a car behind me and the light was about to turn back to green, so I told the man to walk over to the corner, where I would take a right and pull over so I could get my wallet out.

I got a better look at the guy there. He had a pretty heavy coat on, and he had a black goatee that had a good number of gray hairs sticking out wildly in random directions. In the time it took me to drive from being stopped at the light to the spot where we'd meet around the corner, I had decided to give him twenty dollars. I had enough different denominations of money in my wallet that I could have given him exactly what he had asked for, but I just felt like twenty was the amount to give.

He caught up with my car and I handed him the money. He looked to see how much I had given him. The bill was crisp and pretty new, making more money noise than usual when it changed hands. He stood up straight (he had to bend lower to be closer to level with the window) and said "a'ight man, God bless you" as he began to leave.

Stupidly thinking that this kind of interchange would merit genuine communication and real interaction between us, I decided I would respond to him instead of just driving away. "He does, every day" is what I said. I was sincere enough in saying it that I was prompted to think about it in that moment - that is, until I realized that once the man had my money, he left so quickly that he didn't even hear what I had said. He heard just enough noise to know that I was talking, so he lifted his hand up as he walked away, giving one more "a'ight man" as he ignored me.

I closed my window, muttered "ungrateful bastard" under my breath in a shameful moment of weakness, and continued on to my coworker's place.

Three:

A couple of Sundays ago, I was at one of my favorite places to go out. I was with a few friends having dinner and as we were leaving the building to walk to our cars, a beggar approached the group. He engaged my friends and I slipped past everyone else, walking toward my car. The reason I tried to avoid this particular beggar is that I had seen him before in that very same parking lot and given him money and I didn't want to do it again. Look at that last sentence. I also knew that my friends would probably tell him that they didn't have any money (they typically don't carry cash) and then he'd turn to me and I'd squirm and give him money. So he asked my cashless friends for money, didn't get any, and then followed me over to my car, where I squirmed and gave him money.

I asked him what his name was and he said it's William. He was asking for sixteen dollars. He kept referencing some place he was going to stay and it was sixteen dollars a night. I gave him six. I had more in my wallet. I had just spent twice what he was asking us for on dinner and a couple of beers. I tipped our server as much as I gave William - and I tried to avoid giving him anything at all.

***

Each of these stories bothers me, but for different reasons.

The first story bothers me for two reasons: I'm enough of a pushover that a complete stranger can have my money whenever he wants it, and there are people out there who will be nothing short of abusive to get what they want. The guy got confrontational and aggressive with me for three dollars, and he'd have gone further if I wasn't such a spineless wimp.

The second story bothers me a lot more than the first. It bothers me because the guy did everything right. He did everything you do if you want to get money from a stranger - and then, once the money got into his hands, the switch flipped and he was done. He acted exactly as someone would if the whole thing was an act. I don't have the guts to accuse him of faking it, but if he was faking, I'd have been none the wiser. He acted really good, got what he wanted, and went on his way.

The second story bothers me because I'm exactly the same as that guy. I conduct myself no differently than he does. Difference is, my guy driving the 1990 Buick Century is none other than our lord God above.

I can do all the things that a good boy does and be really nice to God and ask him for things - and then I can get the things I want and go on my way. I'm exactly the same as that guy. I'm the ungrateful bastard.

The third story bothers me a lot more than either the second or the first. It bothers me because both William and I approach this problem in a way that will never, ever, ever fix anything. Both William and I are looking for band-aid solutions to a huge, festering, gaping wound of a problem.

The problem isn't that William didn't know where he was going to sleep a couple of Sundays ago. Don't get me wrong - that's a problem. But the real problem? The real problem is, even if William runs into a hundred people who are as big a pushover as I am, he's still not going to know where he's going to sleep a couple Tuesdays from now.

I could run into William tomorrow and give him a hundred dollars, and I would have the exact same effect on the real problem as I do when I avoid someone who's walking around begging for money. He'd still be in such a position that "where am I going to sleep tonight?" is a question he's going to be asking himself every day.

I'm an idealistic person. Small things usually mean a great deal to me. I'm the kind of person that really believes in a small decision or action, that it will add to some cumulative process that's eventually going to mean something.

I've never had more trouble holding that kind of worldview than when it comes to this issue.

How can I really believe that when it comes to this? How can I believe that what I'm doing means anything when William's sleeping on the pavement? Presumably, he hasn't been in this kind of position his whole life. At some point, he had provision and had connection to family and friends and all the things that add up to what we call "a life" - and that's all been torn down by some terrible combination of circumstances.

How can I still believe that the small thing matters then?

Six dollars. It's an insult to everything I've ever called hope. It just feels wrong.

Burning Upon Re-entry.

It's been a long, long, long time since I've blogged.

I'd tell you about all of the things that have distracted me from the practice, but I'm not sure they'd interest you, even though blogging, at its outset, requires a belief in the existence of some interesting quality in one's thoughts, opinions and experiences. Instead, I'll just skip right to the thoughts and opinions stemming from a particular experience.

I've been volunteering with a particular youth ministry for about nine years now.

There are any number of directions in which I could take this blog entry given that starting point. I have more stories about people going through the most awkward and confusing phase of their lives than I know what to do with.

You see a lot of things when working in youth ministry. You see a lot of different kids from a lot of different situations reacting to a lot of different things in a lot of different ways.

And then, when you thought it couldn't possibly get any weirder, when you believe you've reached the pinnacle of human strangeness, when you begin to look back on your own adolescence with a sense of comfort because of the baffling peculiarity with which some of these people conduct themselves - then you meet their parents.

I suppose that not all youth ministries attract the same sort of people. To give you some idea of what I'm dealing with, this particular youth ministry belongs to a moderately-floundering suburban megachurch. I'd try to give a general description of many of the people there, but that requires a lot of sweeping generalities and I'm going to do more than enough writing that people would consider "negative" in this entry.

So, back to the parents. Parents do many, many things in the name of protecting their children. Many of those things actually end up protecting their children. I'd like to tell you about one of the other things.

I hang out with some students from the youth ministry when I can, as I believe that spending time with positive influences is good for young people and, every now and then, I conduct myself in such a way that suggests that I'm a positive influence.

I was hanging out with a student at a coffee shop which is normally occupied with a disproportionately high percentage of Christians. It's located near a couple of private Christian universities, so it's a convenient place for them to have coffee. It's a Caribou Coffee, which, for whatever reason, is loved by suburban Minnesotan Christians. They're obsessed with it. None of that information is particularly relevant, apart from the fact that being around this particular group of people intensified my reaction to what the student told me about when we were having a cup of coffee together.

He was telling me about a discussion he and some students had with volunteer youth ministry leaders (many of which are parents of students involved in the program) at the latest of his semi-weekly house group meetings (this youth ministry meets at the church every other week, with the other weeks devoted to several smaller gatherings located in a few houses spread throughout the cities).

Conversations with teenagers can go a lot of different ways. Teenagers have active and growing minds, and a "normal" conversation with a teenager will likely deviate from one subject matter in favor of another with regularity. They are a curious bunch, if nothing else. It is one of the few consistencies I find in having discussions with people of that age group. I really like that about them.

The conversation this student was having (with other students and some volunteer leaders, a couple of whom were parents)? It was about Harry Potter.

Youth ministry exists in large part to guide the next generation into carrying on the tradition of faith which their parents have adopted, in a manner that helps the students grow into healthy, morally-sound people of faith. This involves a lot more conversations about a lot more things like Harry Potter than one without any youth ministry experience would expect.

I don't know much about the particular demographic of the people who happen to read my blog every now and then. I don't know how many of them have had consistent exposure to the kind of religious environment into which I regularly thrust myself in the name of hope for the youth of this world - but I know that I think that the following should be troubling to all of them:

Parents spend time telling young people about the spiritual perils of exposure to Harry Potter.

Doing this requires a worldview that is far, far more intense than I am willing to hold. I grew up hearing a lot of things about "spiritual battles." My parents never told me about anything like that, but I spent a lot of time at church to make them happy, so I heard a lot about it. I do believe in many spiritual things, and that in some way there are spiritual forces at work in this world, some good (those associated with the being to whom I refer as "God") and some opposed to those I consider good.

And I know that I have never read any of the Harry Potter books. That, however, has a lot more to do with my nonexistent level of interest in them than it does with a pervasive fear that one of the devil's little nasties is going to jump out of page 142, punch my spirit in the groin in order to incapacitate it, then tying it up, taking it captive until I experience deliverance from that damned Harry Potter and his band of spiritual goons.

That's the title of the next one coming out, right? Harry Potter and the Band of Spiritual Goons?

Come to think of it, Christians ought to rename the books that have already been released to more accurately depict the effects they might have on one's spirit:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? No good. How about Harry Potter and the Eternal Lake of Fire Into Which He Will Plunge Your Screaming Children If You Let Him?

I was going to rename more of those, but couldn't get past ideas that were wildly inappropriate.

Really though - just imagine it, the event of a lifetime, the long-anticipated, winner-takes-all, ultimate spiritual confrontation of the universe...taking place at the famed MGM Grand Las Vegas, with Michael Buffer doing the introductions:

DING DING DING!

And now...in this corner...standing five-foot-nine, one hundred forty pounds - the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords - Jeeeesuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuussss Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist!

[wild cheering]

...and in this corner...standing five-foot-six, one hundred sixteen pounds - the Stealer of Souls, the Slayer of Spirits, the Devil's Dastardly Deputy - Harr-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Pooooooooo-tterrrrrrrr!

[raucous booing, children and their parents cursing and throwing garbage]

Ladies and gentlemen - llllllllllllet's get rrrready to rumble!

And then they duke it out. Imagine the pay-per-view sales.

Christians are taught (both by their Bible and by those who preach from it) that they are empowered by and have living inside of them the same spirit which raised Christ from the dead.

Gotta watch out for that Harry Potter, though.