The snow is gone, but green has yet to appear. And today, the sun was lost behind a steel-grey blanket of severe-looking clouds. There is a certain beauty in the barren bleakness of the grey and brown mess that is almost spring.
For the life of me, however, I cannot fathom what it is.
I miss you.
And you must miss me at least a little bit because we exchange more text messaging now than we ever did while we were in an actual relationship. (And YOU are the one who initiates contact with most of them. Has that irony occurred to you? )
And I know that if I invited you to come watch Pitch Perfect with me, you would.
If I show up on your doorstep and ask you to go for a walk with me, you would.
But I have to keep forcefully reminding myself that I don’t want to settle for your concession.
What I really want is someone who will show up on MY doorstep.
Who will put a letter in MY mailbox.
Who will miss me more than I miss them.
And that is why I will not chase you even though I know that you are lonely enough that I could catch your company.
I want so much more than company.
I work in a place where very few people see me–actually see me. They pass me every day. I deliver their mail and process their packages. But I am a small service provider, and they are the professional engineers–we exist in the same sphere, but there is a world of difference between us.
So it stands out when someone does actually see me and takes the time to acknowledge me.
It’s happened twice in two days. TWICE!
Yesterday, Kat asked if I would go to lunch with her. I’ve worked here since August, and this is the FIRST time any employee of the site where I contract has expressed interest in getting to know me personally as opposed to merely making idle chit chat while they are preparing a package in the shipping room.
And today, one of the male engineers greeted me BY NAME as he was walking past where I was heaving boxes off of a pallet. On his way back the other way, he stopped to engage in conversation, telling me a bit about his recent adventures in Texas and then listening to me ramble a bit about Killer Bunnies.
Such small things. And yet, to a hungry heart lonely for friends in a sea of people, such significant things. Sometimes a person just wants to be noticed, acknowledged, affirmed that their humanity matters.
Money talks.
It’s not a matter of what should or should not be done, what we believe or what we disbelieve, but a matter of “What do we need to say to toe the party line and keep people contributing?”
This was something I experienced when I taught in a private school that claimed to promote academic excellence but refused to enforce repercussions for substandard academic performance lest a parent remove their child, causing the school to lose the dollars that student’s presence contributed to our institution. That was just one of the many reasons I left the school realm. I am too idealistic for my own good… and don’t really want to change that.
But that doesn’t mean I ignore the reality that money talks.
Most organizations are business minded. I currently work in a business organization–it was not the business aspect that I minded half so much as the divergence from the philosophy that was claimed.
When philosophy and business clash, messes ensue, as is clearly evidenced by the hullabaloo surrounding Vision Global’s recent policy changes and the brevity thereof.
First, Vision Global announced that they were going to allow married homosexual employees. Then, two days later, they weren’t.
Why the abrupt change? Well, sudden defunding has a curious way of inspiring repentance.
When they first made their big announcement, thousands of more-conservative-than-vision-global-executive individuals recognized that the charity’s vision was now contrary to deeply held convictions, so they withdrew financial support.
The uproar has been vitriolic to say the least.
Interestingly, few seem to be questioning Vision Global’s spineless wavering. Rather, the brunt of the outcry is against the people who withdrew their support.
How DARE they punish the starving children for Vision Global’s choices? These conservative bigots have clearly organized to use starving children as bargaining chips in a homophobic power play. How dare they make such a display of bigotry and hatred? (How DARE they transfer their ideas of representative government to the private sector!)
I can understand being upset about the situation. Defunding means that supported kids are dropped from the program. Which is sad. Incredibly sad. Innocent bystanders are affected. And by affected I mean that they might possibly starve. To death. It’s not a light consideration. Then there is the whole gay-rights agenda, which is another big bucket of up-in-arms fury.
However, most of the conversation is not about agency, choices, autonomy, or supporting what you believe in. Most of the conversation boils down to emotional blackmail and red herrings.
Please allow me to explain.
Charity, by understood cultural definition, is voluntary sacrifice on behalf of a cause, and nonprofit organizations are for the betterment of whatever cause the organization happens to champion. The function of the organization depends predominantly on resources voluntarily donated by others.
Voluntary is the key word–Willingly given—chosen to bestow from self-directed resources.
If a person chooses to give to charity, it is from their personal resources which they have personally acquired. As the sole proprietor of said personally acquired resources, they have complete autonomy in how they are managed, spent, saved, invested, or bestowed (minus pesky deductions such as taxes and voluntary contractual arrangements constituting ones bills).
I have no say in how the government spends my tax dollars. They are deducted from my paycheck, and the government gets to disperse them to whichever federal fundage they deem. Not so with charity. With charity, I get to choose where my resources go. I personally donate 10-15 percent of my income to charity of some sort. However, when I give to charity, I don’t just give blindly. Feeding poor people is good, but I don’t just give to every soup kitchen I encounter or every organization that claims to have a program for providing food to starving children. I give only to organizations and individuals that reflect my personal values. Nor am I under any obligation to continue funding any charity endeavor–whether it continues to reflect my values or now, but especially if it ceases to. A gift of charity is exactly that—a GIFT. Not a right. Not a debt. Not a compelled or forced act. A beautiful gift. An act of generosity that is not required of anyone but willingly given.
If the organizations to which I give turns in a direction opposing my values, I will transfer my donations to organizations which do. This is a truism for all people.
But the many who pulled their funding from World Vision due to the policy change have come under attack for being un-Christ like and abandoning children in need.
However, anyone who criticizes the withdrawal of support from World Vision is in essence saying that THEY should be the determiners of how an individual spends his own money. (Do you want me to come tell YOU how to spend YOUR money? We might have completely different values. If our values conflict, does my commitment to mine give me the right to dictate yours? No? Then why should you tell anyone else how to spend THEIR money?)
Furthermore, according to the logic espoused these critics, anyone who chooses different types of charities to donate to and/or is not contributing to support a starving child is also a monster. After all, if it’s so bad to withdraw support, wouldn’t NOT SUPPORTING THEM TO BEGIN WITH be far worse? I will confess here and now that I do not support a child through World Vision. I do not support any children in third world countries. My money goes to other charitable causes. Does this make me a monster? Are starving children in far-away countries the only people who have needs worth addressing? Not at all. I can only give a certain portion of my income and also maintain my bills and continue to purchase groceries and buy gas, etc. With this limitation to my charitable contributions, I can only divide my gifts in so many ways. I can’t fight every cause. So I choose one or two. Does the fact that a starving third world child is not on my list make me an evil person? What about the people giving all the criticism? Do THEY support children through World Vision? If not, WHY not? Is it, perhaps, because World Vision is not the nonprofit organization that best aligns with their values? If it is ok for the critic to make that choice, why is it not ok for the withdrawer to have made that choice?
A withdrawer is probably not saying: You know what? I hope starving children die. I’m sick of giving to this organization and have decided to never give again anywhere ever.
No one is using children as a bargaining chip.
Is it unfortunate that innocent bystanders will be effected? YES. That’s terrible. Truly truly terrible. But basically, critics are saying that a sense of guilt and obligation should turn voluntary charitable donation into compulsory monetary support whether one agrees with vision of World Vision or not.
That is emotional blackmail.
It’s the same logic that says government spending should not be cut because it would have a directly unpleasant effect on some people who benefit from the handouts without exploiting them.
But doesn’t God tell us in the Bible to feed his children?
YES!
But he didn’t specify HOW.
And He didn’t specify through what organization.
And He didn’t say that IF you choose to give to an organization rather than directly feeding a hungry person yourself then the organization you support couldn’t change.
For the most part, pragmatic business determines how decisions are made–not through ideals or what’s best (as people are duped into believing) but through a money trail.
There are many factors that could have prompted World Vision to make their initial announcement, but at the end of the day, they reversed their decision due to money. The main base of funding for this organization is conservative Christianity (which honestly speaks more to the generosity of this group than it does to bigotry or hatred). World Vision realized they could not retain the monetary support of their main base while diverging from the convictions the base held.
And people are mad that World Vision would rather keep its funding than change its policies to embrace homosexuality. But it’s easier to villainize evil homophobic Christians by presenting emotional blackmail than it is to criticize World Vision for its spineless waffling.
But here’s why it had to be spineless: All of those people criticizing the withdrawing conservatives weren’t putting their money where their keyboard was. If even HALF of the naysayers had committed to support a child through World Vision, they wouldn’t have had to backtrack on their stance.
This isn’t about the children at all.
If it were, the appalled critics would have quickly picked up the slack. Rather, it’s another below the belt attack against Christianity—as if the people withdrawing their support wouldn’t have found other, equally worth causes through which their consciences wouldn’t have felt violated.
I feel sick that children are going hungry.
But here’s the thing: There have always been hungry children. There always will be. If they get fed at all, it is due to VOLUNTARY and beautiful generosity.
So I propose this:
Rather than criticize how others choose to spend their money in a reflection of their beliefs, instead express your beliefs with your own wallet, your own time, and your own resources. If you support World Vision’s vision (which, by the way, probably hasn’t actually changed. It’s safe to bet that they didn’t coincidentally feel deep, heartfelt conviction at the same time as their funding dried up; it’s nothing more than a fickle fiscal repentance.) then by all means, contribute to them.
And if you don’t support World Vision, choose a different charity:
Charity Navigator is a GREAT resource for comparing and evaluating different charities and NonProfit Organizations.
I personally would choose a similar but different charity, anyway, simply due to research, ratings, and financial stability of the organization itself. But that’s the thing. When it comes to charity, I get to choose for myself. So do you.
So put down the keyboard for a bit and let your money talk for you.
Few Shenanigans 