Coming out of Glasgow Central Station a Big Issue vendor is singing her sales line about the new Big Issue. Not a bad voice, the lyrics not very memorable cos I can't remember them. Provoking a lot of good-natured smiles and occasional looks of perplexed sympathy, but the song is a sales pitch asking for money.
A hundred yards along Gordon Street, a woman is kneeling outside a shop, holding a polystyrene cup, eyes closed, in the disposition of meditation, asking without asking, for money.
Doorbell goes at 6.45pm and a man with glossy publicity brochures is asking about roofs, windows, conservatories and doors. This is a cold call which I try hard not to point out, while also making a brave attempt at hiding my annoyance at what is a commerical unasked for intrusion, asking for money.
An email comes from one of the good causes I once gave a donation to, with several anecdotes of people who have been helped, and several of people who can now only be helped if funds come in, so they're asking for money.
There are endless options for how we choose to use our money, and no shortage of those with various subtle and not so subtle ways of trying to influence those choices. The Big Issue is a couple of pounds, but there are lots of vendors; the polystyrene cup is only one of several to be seen on a saunter round the city centre, and I suppose any amount we give is welcome; the cold call seller parked his car outside our door as he worked the street, and it's significantly more upmarket than mine, and he wants me to spend hundreds or better thousands of pounds on the off chance I've been waiting for just him to suggest how we use the spare loot lying around; the charity generated email is one of a constant flow of conscience pricking, guilt triggering, appeals from worthy causes to which we would all always want to give.
I think money and how I use it is an uncomfortably accurate index of how seriously I try to live Jesus' words. Good intentions don't always lead to the best choices. Once you analyse whether you should give and why, are you not already rationalising a refusal? And isn't there something spiritually to the point in the comment that we regret most the good that we meant to do, and didn't? Of the four options it's no one else's business what I did or didn't give – but just to avoid misunderstandings, we declined the conservatory and assorted real estate upgrades!
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