I am reviving this 2009 post because of Carolyn’s post yesterday at another blog, If she asks for tacos, give a salad?, has a similar theme. Do we give as some sort of trophy act for ourselves? or to meet a need of someone else? Do we give the best we have? or do we give what we don’t want or need? I’m not perfect on this score by any means — but I’ve learned a thing or two about giving.
If you lived off-campus at BYU in the ’70s or early ’80s, you’ll remember this gimmick practiced by Storehouse Markets (a private commercial enterprise, with no connection to the church’s system of bishops’ storehouses):
Storehouse Markets were cavernous, cold, and dark warehouse-type grocery stores that students and young families patronized because they were much cheaper than national chains. In those pre-barcode, pre-electronic scanner days, grocers stamped prices on every single can and box in a case, and individual items were rung up by hand at the checkstand. To keep prices down, Storehouse didn’t hire clerks to do that labor-intensive price-stamping work; instead, they posted prices on the shelves by each product, then furnished customers with grease pencils to write the price on each can and box themselves as they put items in their baskets.
The advantage of that system went away as computers became more common, and I think the entire chain may have since gone the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon.
In the late 1990s I lived in an Orem ward whose youth delivered a Christmas food box each year to the poor and needy of the ward. Apparently their definition of “poor and needy” included single sisters, even those like me with good jobs who hadn’t asked for, didn’t need, and didn’t want the stuff they dropped off, collected from their mothers’ kitchens and pantries. I asked repeatedly not to be included, but the bishop insisted.
The food in those boxes was … odd. The youth and their leaders made no attempt to balance the contents – I remember one year when the box contained six cans of baking powder. There were always boxes of jello, usually a cake mix or two, and the rest was canned vegetables, usually mushrooms. Cans and cans and cans of mushrooms. The stuff was all in dusty, dented, sometimes bulging cans, and the real kicker was that many of the cans had the tell-tale grease pencil-marked prices of Storehouse Markets, branding them as being at least 15 years old, maybe older. Every year, most of the contents of that charity box ended up in my garbage can.
That experience has made me keenly aware of the “stuff” I donate. I no longer donate clothes to Deseret Industries if they’re stained or are missing buttons – I give clothes that have never quite fit right or that didn’t match the skirt I bought to wear with them, but nothing torn or seriously worn. When the ward or the mail carriers do their drives for the community food pantry, I buy new jars of peanut butter – name brand – and donate that. Why should I expect “the poor and needy” to wear rags I wouldn’t wear myself? or to eat what I wouldn’t dare feed to a dog I loved?
Memories of those distasteful charity boxes were revived recently by talk in the bloggernacle about a possible new thrust of charitable church activity. Commenters shared unverifiable anecdotes of church welfare cheats, and created the mental image of a cadre of fiscal spies searching through the garbage cans of charity recipients to be sure they weren’t being wasteful of holy Mammon: How dare the poor feed a pet? How dare they order a Domino’s pizza? How dare their phone bills show long distance calls? In other words, why aren’t they eating decades-old cans of Storehouse Markets mushrooms? Beggars can’t be choosers – eat my garbage, you despis-ed poor and needy!
I am reminded of a letter written by Ned Desaules in 1876, when he was helping to build the St. George Temple as his united order’s donation to that effort. He wrote to his aunt:
I work without pay, and I depend on the good Saints for my support and the means to clothe myself. At present my board is not of the best, and my clothes will soon be all worn out. But I am patient. Although it seems to me that when you work for the good Lord you work for a poor payer, seeing that he receives nothing for tithing except a little flour, some bad butter and a little meat. There are so few Saints who pay their tithing as they ought to.
And I am reminded of a story from David O. McKay:
I thank my earthly father for the lesson he gave to two boys in a hayfield at a time when tithes were paid in kind. We had driven out to the field to get the tenth load of hay, and then over to a part of the meadow where we had taken the ninth load, where there was “wire grass” and “slough grass.” As we started to load the hay, Father called out, “No, boys, drive over to the higher ground.” There was timothy and redtop there. But one of the boys called back (and it was I), “No, let us take the hay as it comes!”
“No, David, that is the tenth load, and the best is none too good for God.”
That is the most effective sermon on tithing I have ever heard in my life.
(Cherished Experiences in the Writings of President David O. McKay, comp. Clare Middlemiss [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1955], pp. 19–20).
If we are ever going to be a Zion people, each of us needs to learn to “esteem his brother as himself” (D&C 38:24). If worn out clothing and mushrooms old enough to qualify for a driver’s license are the best we have, so be it and God bless. But “the best is none too good for God.”
I have always loved that tithing story about David O McKay! He is right, the best is none too good for the Lord.
I agree; if the Lord talks about giving so much, I’d better be giving quality. Plus, there’s that scripture about what you do unto the least of them, you do unto Him….name brands it is. Plus, I see NO redeeming virtue in canned mushrooms. None.
I had this odd experience several years ago. I was going to a work Christmas party where they were collecting toys for children of immigrants in our area. I had recently unearthed a stuffed toy from my childhood and this is embarrassing to admit, but to me, it smelled. I had hoped I could wash it or something, but I never got around to it. And then the night of the party rolled around, and I felt quite strongly that I should give it away at that party. This may be where I should mention that I could not afford even groceries for myself at the time, so it was bring the smelly thing or bring nothing. Anyway, I very shamefacedly came and put in in the donation bin, but the man who was standing at the bin looked so joyful and thankful that I began to hope that maybe the Lord would make it up to whatever poor kid ended up with it.
I keep listening, lately, to that part of the Doctrine and Covenants where it talks about how anyone who has seen this, or that, has seen the Lord moving in his majesty and power. Or something like that– sorry I’m not more exact. I’m convinced that we are ripping layers of blindness from our eyes when we give with a full heart, choosing to see those we are most likely to despise as being in the place of God.
Thanks, Ardis.
I have seen this struggle in many forms. My father was once the president of a small branch of East Asian refugees. We arrived for a Christmas visit to find him puzzling over a list. The youth of another ward had collected random items they thought would make suitable gifts, and now wanted him to give them a name of a branch member for each gift. Some of them might have been things people actually needed, but he could hardly have them deliver a gift to only one or two members of a family. It would have helped if they had looked at the needs first, or if they had donated to a larger organization in which people could select the things they needed.
Sometimes style is valued over substance. I sometimes fear that he most useful forms of service are often the most invisible. Our youth are often steered toward the visible forms, and they don’t recognize where things might not be as helpful as they could be. In a previous ward, certain people insisted that the youth pack sack lunches and go to the inner city on the first Sunday afternoon in December to personally hand them to homeless people. The kids thought it was cool, but several other ward, stake, and church-wide activities were scheduled for the same day, and often other groups were also out handing out food. If they had done it in February, the need would have been greater and there would have been nobody else out doing the same thing.
And now my current little gripe. Someone in our stake has searched the internet and discovered that it is possible to take clean plastic grocery bags, fold them, cut them and turn them in to plastic yarn (plarn). Then, with a very great deal of effort, they can be crocheted into . . . crocheted plastic bags. In other words, trash can be turned into more trash. In theory, they can be given as sleeping mats for homeless people. But they will still look like trash. Plastic bags are being made thinner and more easily degradable, so the mats won’t last that long. $25 will purchase a camping mat that will be more comfortable, more water resistant, and won’t immediately brand the possessor as homeless. Plus, in my case, I could use that 50 hours of crocheting to make 45 hats which would be pretty, with yarn that would feel good in my hands, and which the wearer might actually choose to wear. When I raised my concern privately, I was told “This isn’t about efficiency. It’s about service.” But if it’s not something that those being served really want, is that service?
OK, sorry. Rant over. I will quietly go back to piecing quilts and crocheting hats that meet my vow only to donate beautiful things and quietly let other people mess with plastic bags.
I remember Storehouse Markets from my student days. Their raw hamburger was so laced with nitrites or carbon monoxide that it continued to look pink and fresh long after it had begun to smell.
My ward members continue to amaze me. When we have a food drive, or a clothes drive, or other charitable drives, many if not most go out and buy new stuff to donate. Good stuff. It makes me wonder how I wound up in a ward with so many people who are better than I am.
Oh, the plastic bag mats! Our branch RS decided to do this. All it took was one evening of having us all cut mounds of plastic bags (only to end up with barely enough lengths of plastic for just a few mats) and many, many hours of just one experienced crocheter attempting to make a single mat, and that project was (pun intended) bagged.
Our stake humanitarian center is making these mats and asked every woman in the stake to donate the plastic sacks. I haven’t heard how that went.
Thanks for this, Ardis, and all those who commented, too.
Do you live in Cache Valley, Maurine?