Geek Girly Speaks

Geek Girly, also known as AmberCrystal (http://www.ambercrystal.blogspot.com ), had this to say today:

Geek Girly has a serious bone to pick with the world at large, and although she will try to be articulate and eloquent about this matter, please note - she is good and thoroughly pissed.

Some background: GG has a friend who has a 20something daughter who lives with her and her second husband. The Daughter is married, pregnant, and does not work. (GG points this out because all three descriptions and situations were the Daughter's choice.) GG's friend, a rather passionate, somewhat dramatically emotional redhead, feels guilty that she was a teenaged, unwed mother from one of the states where inbreeding is considered a legitimate lifestyle choice, so allows the Daughter too much freedom for her situation. The Daughter, who only moved in with GG's friend on the stipulation that her then-boyfriend/occasional lover be allowed to move in with her, recently became pregnant. At her wedding, oblivious to the financial difficulties of her mother and stepfather, the Daughter actually had the nerve to whine, because her belly showed through the A-line gown she had been purchased and, because... Mommmm!!! I wanted tulips, not lilieeeessss.... (To say that the Daughter is a disappointing reminder to GG that life is NOT as lovely as it is in her head, and that people are NOT always the kind, wondrous creatures she tends to view them as is... well, a given.)

On to the soapbox moment....

This past weekend, GG and a group of her (very cool, amazingly generous) co-workers traveled not so great distances into Downtown, to help serve at a local soup kitchen. It was an amazing experience! The people were kind, the service warmly received, and GG and two or three new friends have already made plans to return on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

According to a volunteer at the shelter, they will serve over 1500 people on Thanksgiving Day alone... Seeing the impressive, tangible need, GG was deeply, passionately touched... Knowing that there was only enough food for the day to feed roughly 70 people and 100 showed up seems fundamentally wrong. The fact that it's avoidable and could be changed if those with more would give more, or learn to live with less, infuriates this Geek past the point of articulation. So... there is GG and intrepid team, getting so much more back than they had given, and grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Meanwhile.... across Town....there is a baby shower going on, welcoming this new life growing inside the Daughter. Gifts upon gifts upon gifts are being opened... food is splayed, drinks flowing like lies from a politician's tongue.... there is much joy and merriment, and it was, GG is sure, a lovely little get-together... except that there are so many gifts.... and they keep coming.... for 15 minutes... then 30... an hour... then 2.... and more... All have to be opened and adored..... proper homage to be paid before the next is received, cooed over... presented....

What lessens the merriment of this experience for GG is.... this joy is not for the child - it is for things made of dust and earth, not lasting as long as a thought. They will used, yes, of course, but will they be truly appreciated? What will the child gain from this overabundance? Will she understand that things are just... things, but that souls, people are divine? Will she get that there is more to life than the newest, latest, greatest? Or will this materialistic existance jade her eyes, numb her soul, so that she thinks happiness is ownership, and those who have not... are worth naught?

This... this is why GG prays.

GG would humbly request that you donate food, time, clothing, anything you can spare as often as possible to the most worthy causes listed below. It doesn't matter who you are or where you live, you can be of benefit to someone, somewhere... and perhaps someday... we can all live free.

www.salvationarmy.org
www.habitat.org
www.worldvision.org
www.shoesfororphansouls.com
www.redcross.org
www.amnesty.org

To which I replied:

This is always a difficult thing for me: How do you criticize someone who receives your charity? But how can you not?

It's not really charity if it comes with strings attached, is it? You're not really asking the person you're giving to to simper and grovel, are you?

But if you set no conditions, and no limits, those who benefit from your generosity will abuse it, or become obnoxious on account of feeling guilty for "owing" you so much.

I saw a little of that this summer, when my teenaged son's friends were hanging out at our place for days on end. They were delighted to have a place they could sit around and talk, make out and get silly, and not have to fear being rousted by the management or the police. But when it got so we never had the place to ourselves, and so few of our guests made any effort to clean up the mess they created, the novelty of all that company faded.

And then came the night one of them asked me to cook him something to eat. Oy.

It's made more difficult for me, because I don't take the conventional Christian approach, that charity is entirely an "extra", which you may feel free to withhold for no reason and incur no penalty. I incline more to the Jewish doctrine that charity is an obligation that cannot lightly be shirked.

So yes, GG's friend's daughter is a boor and a parasite, but I really don't know what, if anything, GG can honorably do, or even say, about the subject.