Beggar?

Hello,

Yesterday as I came out of a store I heard a woman in a car talking to two people who were walking to their car. I could tell that she was talking about men who were in the trees or bushes. It seemed to be not good. I walked over to my car and as I opened the door a guy suddenly was talking to me. He was standing back by the end of the car. He seemed to notice my start as he said, “I will not hurt you. I have run out of gas and I need to get to a neighboring town.”

I just kept looking at him as he hesitated then he said, “I just need a little more to buy gas.”

I was considering giving him five dollars when the woman in the car drove up and started yelling with hostility at him, “You should go. You are just begging. This is illegal.”

“You stay out of this, it does not concern you,” he retorted.

“That other guy ran away when I accused him,” she said.

In the meantime the man who has been walking to his car came up and he strongly told the begging man, “You should apply for work as a company is hiring.”

It all came to a standstill then. I looked at the asking man and he looked at me. At that moment I decided and said, “I will give you two dollars.”

As I handed it to him he said, “God Bless.”

Where is God in all of this? What is the right thing to do? Would anyone help me if I needed it?

I remember a friend talking about her son who accidently got off at the wrong platform on the EL in Chicago. He did not have a dime or a phone on him. He asked people to give him the fare so he could get back on, but it was a long time before anyone did that. At that point he learned a new appreciation for desperate people. If people had known that he was rich but just did not have the funds would they have been more generous? We ultimately never know the circumstances of another. Are we all just afraid that someone is getting rich from begging? I do suspect he was a homeless man, although he looked fairly clean, who might live somewhere around there. If I am asked at that place again, I will be less willing to give, although is that right? I have no trouble giving from the community garden, but this did not sit as easy.

Paula