OK, so some of you are going to call me an idiot, a patsy, a pansy-faced sucker.

And maybe I am.

I’m sitting in a fast food joint, slurping a soda that I’m not supposed to have because I have braces (don’t tell my orthodontist).  I came here to write a post just for you, because you’re one of my favorite people.  The plan was to write about a cool tradition my family has for my wife’s birthday, but then I got distracted by the news that the AMA has officially designated obesity a disease.  I decided that I needed to vent about the inanity of that concept, and, having an hour or so to kill, I plopped down on a stool to ingest sugar and fat while ranting and raving.

You’re going to have to wait for both of those posts (and I hope you do), because when I did the afore-mentioned plopping, I saw something.

A family—Dad, Mom, and two little girls–sitting on the curb in front of the restaurant holding a sign.

Truthfully, I had seen them as I walked into the restaurant, but I looked the other way.  I didn’t even want to see what their sign said, because I figured it was probably a scam.  My general policy is to not give money to panhandlers, because the vast majority are either scamming me or spending the money on the vice that landed them on the street in the first place.

I can remember two times when I have violated that policy and seen it come back to bite me in the chagrin.  Once, when I was a punk twenty-year-old, a man approached me in a gas station.  He had seen the Christian bumper sticker on my car, and knew that I would be compassionate (read gullible).  He spun a great story about how he was stranded and just needed money for gas to get home.  He even asked for my address so he could send me the money as soon as he got back.

It would seem that he lost the paper on which he had so painstakingly written my address.

On another occasion, when I was a punk 43-year-old, an elderly woman approached me outside a donut shop.  She asked for help, and I had a real tough time justifying my purchase of tasty-deep-fried-yummy in the face of real need, so I gave her some cash

and watched her walk across the street to the liquor store

and emerge

with a pack of cigarettes.

I’m not just bitter, and I’m not just mean—though I can be both from time to time.  Soup kitchens, taking blankets to people on cold nights—I’ve done those things.  It’s just that I really think that giving money to the guy standing at the freeway offramp hurts more than it helps.  More often than feeding the body, it simply feeds the dependency.

But the kids…

So here I sat, slurping, debating what to do, thinking, “On my way out, I’ll offer to buy them a meal.”  After a few minutes, I saw them pack their stuff and start to head out of the parking lot.  I gotta tell you, my first thought was, “Whew, now I don’t have to deal with that.”

Wow…

About three seconds later, I caught up to them in the parking lot.  They came back into the restaurant with me, and for $14.21 two little girls and their mom and dad got a hot dinner.

I didn’t say it was wholesome—after all, it was fast food taquitos.  But still…

I’m not looking for “atta boys” here.  Frankly, I pretty much did everything wrong.  I walked past these people, then almost let them walk away hungry, because I didn’t want to be uncomfortable.  I could have sat with them, heard their story, shared Christ with them.  I could have made it communion.  Instead, I paid for the food, shook their hands, and returned to my stool, ostensibly to give them privacy but also so as not to burst my comfort bubble.

Still, I did something.

I’ve struggled with the issue of the homeless for a long time now, and it seems I’m not going to solve it tonight.  Give me a few days to get my thoughts in order, and we can continue this.  In the meantime, I would love to hear how you handle situations like the one I encountered tonight.  Maybe you can help come up with a plan that actually makes sense.

For now, all I know is this.  When I lie in my clean, safe bed tonight I will think about a man named Brian, his daughters Megan and Maddie, and his wife who kept her head down and mumbled her name so softly that I couldn’t make it out.  I will pray that the food God provided them through me gives them nourishment and pleasure, and that tonight they will go to sleep knowing that someone cares.

And I will hope I wasn’t scammed out of $14.21.