C.S. Lewis Makes a Good Point

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis stories revolves around a night he and his friend were walking down the street. Along the path, they see a homeless man. Lewis immediately reached into his pockets, pulled out all the cash he had on him, and handed it to the man. As they walked away, his friend said, "You shouldn't have done that. He's just going to squander it on tobacco and alcohol." Mr. Lewis looks at his friend and replies, "Well, that's what I was going to do with it."

I think this story illustrates the imperfection of humanity and our ability to show grace through it. While it's true that we are called to be good stewards of our resources, some things are bigger than money. In this case, dignity. Lewis recognized the humanity in this homeless man and chose to show him dignity. It's a sharp but beautiful story that has helped shape my heart around generosity.

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Yesterday afternoon, the boys and I were riding bikes after school when we approached a homeless man getting some reprieve from the sun. My gut instinct was to ignore him, but I knew he deserved far more dignity than that. Eventually, the boys and I approached him. I asked if he could use some cash, then gave him everything I had in my pocket (+/- $17). He was beyond grateful for this unsolicited gift, which led to a fun conversation. The man shared a few pieces of his story, we chatted about his day, he asked the kids about their favorite bible verses, and he asked if there was a thrift shop nearby where he could pick up a few supplies. Before leaving, I asked if he needed anything. He said it would be amazing if I could help him find a phone charger. I told him I could absolutely make that happen, and I would be back later to drop it off.

When we got home, Pax headed straight for the pantry. Sarah, seeing him out of the corner of her eye, said, "Pax, no food right now. I'm making dinner." Pax, quick to defend himself, responded, "This isn't for me, Mom. I'm making Ben a snack bag. I don't want him to be hungry tonight." He gets a grocery sack from under the sink, then fills it with beef sticks, peanuts, granola bars, almonds, animal crackers (can't forget the animal crackers!), and apples. "Dad, do you have the charger ready? We should go take this to him right now."

Wow. This is from a first-grader. While most of us adults are busy assessing the merit, use, and deservingness of a potential gift, this little boy is busy showing love, compassion, and action. I'm always proud of my kids, but this moment was a bit more special. C.S. Lewis makes a good point, but Pax already knew it in his heart. Generosity always wins.

Coke and Context

I was recently trading texts with an old high school friend. We usually text about NBA basketball, but other times we hit on parenting, work, relationships, and life. In this particular conversation, he mentioned the prevalence of drugs in his world. A bit confused, I started asking him some questions. He was saying things that I cannot relate to in any shape or form. He's my exact age, and we spent most of our childhoods living in the same tiny town, hanging with the same people. If I wasn't already disoriented enough, he dropped a comment that shook me, "Honestly, it's hard to meet a girl who doesn't do coke." That's a different type of relational challenge than I've struggled with.....to put it lightly.

This is one of the beautiful parts about spending time with all types of people. The context of their lives can tremendously vary from one person to the next. It's wild to think about, sometimes. Whenever something happens to us, or we see/hear something, or we learn something new, we experience it through the context of our own journey. This is natural, and it's human nature. But it also limits our ability to see the bigger picture....and can prevent us from having empathy for others.

In our polarizing, black-and-white world, we leave little room for nuance or contextual answers. What's right for one family might not be suitable for another. This is where financial advice can go awry. We treat everything like it's carved into a stone tablet. If you do x, you're smart. If you do y, you're dumb. This type of mentality is causing some to sabotage their lives while leaving others completely paralyzed due to an internal conflict between what is "right" and what they know is probably a more fitting answer.

It's not uncommon for me to give one piece of advice to a family, then a few hours later give the total opposite advice to another. Context matters. Here's where I want to land the plane today. Regardless of who, where, and when you hear advice (financial or otherwise), look at it through the lens of your unique journey. The deliverer of the advice may be giving it through the lens of a different context, or perhaps their perspective is limited to their own tiny view of the world. It might be the best advice in the world......or not. There's no magic pills here. If all else fails, find a diverse group of people in your life to bounce ideas off. The collection of varying feedback you get will be telling, and valuable!

No Good Deed: The Rest of the Story

Yesterday, I shared the story of a crappy flight experience where I tried to be generous and do the right thing, but quickly paid a harsh price for said generosity. If you haven't read that post yet, I highly recommend you do before reading the rest of this article. During this horrendous experience, I did the one thing that could possibly help me keep my sanity: I started writing. The frustration I experienced while sitting in my plane seat happened while we were experiencing a severe delay in taking off. So as I'm writing, the pilot announced the flight would be delayed for "at least 1 hour" as maintenance crews fix a broken part. They then asked us to get off the plane and await further instructions. That's when I wrote the majority of yesterday's article.

I have a confession for you. Yesterday's post wasn't the whole story. As I was lamenting the situation to myself and in my writing, I stated, "All we can do is put our best foot forward and hope good will come from our actions (whether we see it or not)." Today's post is about what happened next.

After a lengthy delay, we all got back on the plane......well, most of us. Given the severity of the delay, many people were going to miss their connecting flights and had to make alternative arrangements. Thus, there were far fewer people on the plane. Due to a minor miracle (and much luck), I had an entire row to myself. For this, I was extremely excited!!!! As we were getting ready to take off, the mom behind me (the one who leered at me as if I was a child molester) engaged me and thanked me for being so kind to their little girl. They revealed to me how they were on day two of flight cancellations and hadn't slept in two nights. This fact would most certainly explain why the dad was so irritable, or as I referred to him yesterday, "belligerent." As the conversation continued, they realized I was the one who gave up my seat so they could all sit together as a family. They expressed their gratitude for this gesture, especially for how exhausted and distraught their last few days have made them. In short, this was a good family, with the best intentions, clearly struggling, but majorly grateful for my small generous act.

Remember my comment from yesterday? "All we can do is put our best foot forward and hope good will come from our actions (whether we see it or not)." Doing the right thing is always the right thing. We can never go wrong with being generous. I meant those words when I said them yesterday, but I'm so grateful for the swift and forceful reminder of how important our generosity, humility, and empathy is. It always matters.