GIVING

I have been with smartly-dressed, and generous, businessmen coming home from work in London on the Underground and seen them frown, and sometimes speak with impatience, about those (homeless) people who smell and are dirty, sprawling on the floor and making it difficult to pass by. Yet when later that night one of these businessmen writes his cheque for a well-known charity, some of the money he gives may well provide for folk like these … It is interesting why we find it easier to cope with the latter more than the former. We can often ‘sanitize’ our giving, even romanticize it.
(Elaine Storkey, “Mary’s Story, Mary’s Song”)