Holidays and Charity: Give with Love

This morning I went into the large conference room at our law office to help wrap the last few presents for the family we've adopted this Christmas through the Salvation Army's Adopt a Family program. This year it is a grandmother raising four young grandchildren. The lists were winter clothing, shoes, school supplies, and a bicycle for each child. I chose the six year old girl, went shopping at Old Navy one day buying her modest but adorable outfits and warm clothing, and I got her a bicycle and helmet. Many others in the office, from attorneys to receptionists, also put in the time to go shop for a stranger based on a wish list.

It is a marvelous gift to be able to get inside someone else's hopes and desires for a little while. When I walked through Old Navy I tried to be six years old again. I chose pale blue and pink and the main colors for mix and match outfits and I also found a jacket that was featured in many ads (so I knew it would pass the fashion test at school), but also spoke directly to me. It was something my two girls would have worn at that age, and that I certainly would have dreamed of owning. I found something that made me feel the way I felt about this coat my mother bought for me the year I turned ten. It was something of my very own, not like anything any of my sisters had - something feminine and stylish. I did the same with the sweaters and tee shirts, the brushed corduroy jeans in pale blue and the cotton jeans in pink. I wanted this little girl to feel pretty, to be warm, to know that someone believed in her and knew she would weather this tough time in her family's life.

The bicycles these children asked for were an important part of that love and empowerment. A bicycle gets you around on your own, gives you mobility. To a child it is just the same statement about independence that a car is to an adult. Every child should have a bike of their own. The bike gets you out of the house or the apartment. It transports you to school, to a park where you can set your cares aside and ride, feel the wind on your face, feel how strong your legs are and know that you got to your destination on your own steam. A bike lets you know you can take hold of your destiny. A child who has a bicycle under the tree knows he or she is loved. That the bike may come from outside the household sends the message that there is indeed love in the world beyond them as well. The reason we give, the reason so-called charity is important, is because it is about love. It doesn't matter if that bike you give someone is a top of the line, must have, or if it has been well used but repainted and re-tooled. If you know what it means to a small child, you know the specifics don't matter. That bike, that well chosen jacket or dress or shirt and tie, tells a child "I care about you" and helps that child extend his or her care outside his own home or neighborhood.

You don't have to buy someone a house or deliver them decisively from poverty for a lifetime to give them hope, you just have to love. Mother Teresa, a particular role model for me, lived among the people she cared for her entire life. Born in Albania, she went to India with her order and dedicated herself to the sick and the dying in the poorest slums of Calcutta. It was she who said it is not the size of the gift or the act that matters, but the amount of love you put into it. Moreso than many in this world, she understood that richness lies in love, not wealth. When we are facing challenges in life, be they physical, economic or familial, it isn't some grand gesture that gives us hope, that helps us out of this moment, it is always love. And it is important to give to others, if we can give with love.

I am not a soft touch. I don't hand money to everyone who asks me for it on the street. I believe in hard work and whatever rewards that hard work earns you. On the same day I went shopping for this family I noticed that there was a sign out in front of the Target store in my area that said they were now providing a solicitor free shopping environement. There was no Salvation Army kettle out front as per usual at Christmas time. The reason was simple, people roam the parking lot and hang out in front of that store all the time and shoppers complained. So, no solicitors. But, as I left Target a woman who often comes up to me in parking lots (sometimes her mother or a woman who is old enough to be her mother does) came up to my son and I as we began to put the cleaning supplies and dog food we'd purchased in our car. It was dark out. She was carrying a little tray and she asked me if I could help her out, that she was raising funds for needy families in the area. Usually she just asks for money for herself and a child or two she has in a shopping cart. Sometimes it is the older woman who does this and she says they are her grandchildren and they are all hungry. They have never once taken me up on my offer to have them dine with us in the restaurant in the same parking lot, nor have they ever accepted an offer of some of the food in our grocery bags. This woman who approached my son and me is a large part of the reason the Salvation Army can't ring its bell and collect spare change or small donations in front of that Target store any more. So, I declined her appeal and I politely reminded her that soliciting is prohibited in the parking lot. She sneered at me and went off to ask another woman and child who were going to their car. That woman also declined. I wish I knew how to help that woman. I wish I knew the way to express love and hope to her that would get her outside herself and her own pain or demons or whatever it is that makes her and the older woman prowl the parking lot there and in the adjacent town throughout the year. They have a home. They have a car which I have seen them arrive in on two occasions. They may be drug addicted or have mental problems. They are worthy of love too. But, giving them money in a parking lot because it's night time and they've ambushed me in front of my child at my car, supporting their scams, isn't a gift of love. At least it doesn't feel that way to me.

What feels real to me is when a sixty-two year old woman who has already lost a leg to diabetes gets a phone call that her daughter has been arrested and she goes to family services to pick up her four grandchildren. It feels real to me when that woman does all she can to support four young children and realizes there is nothing left for them for Christmas. I can get inside her head, her heart and know what a mother feels, what a grandmother feels for four children who have had the floor pulled out from under them. It's hard to say what next year might hold and getting by day to day is all she can offer. That, and love. So, she humbles herself and goes to the Salvation Army and says she can't give her grandkids any kind of a Christmas and they have very basic needs she can't meet right now. like good winter clothing. She doesn't trot them out in a shopping cart and humiliate them in front of strangers. Instead she lets the Salvation Army put an ornament on a tree and she hopes someone will come along, like the people in our law firm, and adopt them this year.

There are plenty of people in this world, in my community, much farther along the road of poverty or disenfranchisement than this grandmother who swallowed her pride and went forward to ask for formal help. There are people who will hold out a hand to me on the street today or tomorrow and for whom all I can offer by way of hope is a warm meal or a cup of coffee and a loving smile. I can do that too. And, as busy as I am and as hectic as my life is right now with one child in the hospital and two going through a lot of stress without her, I can remember I have a grandmother who lives alone in assisted living and needs just an hour of my time each week. I can remember my mom who is a child with limited verbal abilities and whose cognitive abilities disappear daily. Regardless I make a 270 mile round trip three times a week to visit my daughter, I go see my mom at least twice a week. Because I love her. Because when there is so little left that she does know, she needs to know love most of all.

There must be some way you can offer others, either people you know or total strangers, some charity. The dictionary defines charity as both giving to someone in need and also by the Greek term "agape", which is loosely translated as a self-sacrificing love for humanity. Charity is not something that should be done grudgingly or perfunctorily, but always with love. The piece of oneseslf that goes forward in an act of charity must be given with love. And at a time of year when so many hands seem to be out, and some of them we feel we must turn away, or we question their motives, it can be difficult to find that extra bit of love within ourselves. But we should, we must. The seed that gets planted with those carefully chosen clothes and the lovingly built bicycle is not just the message to a child that she is loved, but that she can believe in love and must love in return. There is no better investment in life, no greater reward returned. Give with love.