Not All Almas Mat(t)er

I got a call from my undergrad university last night and answered the phone with zero intention of giving. While I had heaps of fun there, I never learned much. (Note: Not pointing fingers at them, Lord knows.) Grad school was, thankfully, a completely different story.

The girl on the phone said to me, "We're really appreciative of any small amount that you can give and we're still grateful for the $10 you gave in 1990."

Holy crap! How embarrassing, right? A mere $10 over 20 years ago? What a cheapskate!

Oddly enough, I remember giving that year -- including exactly where I took the call. (I was standing at my kitchen sink in a red farmhouse that house I rented on Jefferson Road. Weird to remember that, right?) The guy who called told me that any amount would help offset the costs of great student events and cited a free Psychedelic Furs concert that I had attended. Ka-ching! We actually chatted about bands for awhile: for me, a winning strategy. In his case, it paid to do his homework (albeit a pittance).

Every telemarketing campaign should play off people's interests (e.g., music) or weaknesses (e.g., shame, lack of honor) this successfully. In my case, providing hard data and a timeline to show precisely how long it had been since my hard heart opened roughly one tenth of one percent and abruptly closed again.

I'm a rotter.

I just hope that overwhelmingly generous $50 given last night goes far over the next four score and twenty years . . .

Yeah for me!

Feliz Navidad

We recently had a sermon at church that talked about putting a face on your giving. In other words, going out of your way to help someone you may know even slightly (vs. purely donating $ to a good cause) by simply lending an ear, spending time together, asking how s/he is, etc.

It reminded me of a quip that Maura, a woman I went to grad school with, once said regarding Social Security. "I wouldn't even mind contributing to it if I could just receive a card with a picture of a little old man thanking me for paying his heating bill last month."

This year, our family bought presents for an "angel" (i.e., a local seven year old girl sponsored by the Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect), filled a shoe box with toys and candy for a third world child via Samaritan's Purse, and contributed 10 thermal shirts to the shoe boxes that our bible study packed for the homeless here in Rochester through the Open Door Mission.

I share this not because I'm proud of this tiny, tiny contribution (especially in lieu of how small it is compared with how much we have) but rather because (even though I know that every little bit helps) the sense of giving pales in comparison with helping someone you know.

In my office building, we have had a series of cleaning people come and go through the years. For a beautiful old mansion, the place sometimes looks downright decrepit. But this year, the landlord hired an awesome woman named Juana to clean and the place has been spotless.

Juana and her husband moved here for a better life, live in one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city, are raising two sweet little boys, work four jobs each and selflessly send a big chunk of their money to Honduras where their families live in poverty.

Last summer, she sent her kids to her sister's house in Honduras so that they could have a few months of fun at the beach while her husband and she worked endlessly. Asking about them always brought tears to her eyes because, as any mother would, she missed them in an excruciating way.

But after working all of her other jobs, she comes in every night smiling. And it doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous: long, dark, wavy hair and big doe eyes. She's literally radiant. When I asked her recently how she was doing, I wasn't entirely surprised when she raised her arms to the sky and responded, "God will provide." When I asked her what she was giving to her kids for Christmas, she shared with me that her kids understand that there will be no gifts or tree and that their happiness should come from the Lord (not Santa). Yeah, let me try that one on my kids. What? Not everyone gets Guitar Hero III just because it's on the list?

But last week, for the first time in months, she didn't seem quite as joyful. When my boss asked her how she was doing, she burst into tears and said that her grandmother was ill. I'm sure Honduras felt really far that night especially since we were receiving a foot of snow.

So my boss and I went nuts. We set a price limit and then exceeded it 2X. We bought a tree, lights and ornaments. We bought toys, a huge Lego set, more games and candy. We filled stockings for the boys and gave Juana a big basket of bath products. Lastly, we wrote her and her husband a card that said, "Nuestro Dios es su Dios" (which given my poor Spanish intended to say, "Our God is your God") and enclosed two gift cards: one to Target for warm hats, coats and mittens and one to Wegman's to cover their Christmas meal.

Over the top. Insane. Yet literally a drop in the bucket when compared to the carnage that will be under our tree.

She was overwhelmed. She told me that her kids kept running around their home asking, "What made those ladies buy us all of these gifts?"

Her response, "God put us into their hearts."

And that right there summed it all up. Yes, it's good to give to worthy causes. But it feels amazing when your heart swells for a family who deserves just as much as, if not more than, the rest of us but has so little.

My boss and I agree: Our giving made us feel happier than it made Juana and her family to receive. So much for selfless acts of kindness. Is there really such a thing?