Do BEGGARS fulfill a need?

Beggars : Excerpt from Chapter 1 Eight Steps to Emotional, Relational, Spiritual Wholeness: The Healing Power of the Beatitudes

I don’t know if you have lived in countries with beggars. I have. I have seen mothers with almost lifeless babies strapped to their backs. I have seen individuals that are so physically malformed one cannot comprehend how they survive. (I remember one man in a wheelchair who had nothing below the waist.) I have seen people pulling themselves along by their arms reinforced with pieces of old tires on their elbows to protect themselves at least a little from the ground and concrete.  Often clothes are minimal to nonexistent.

How one handles seeing this is difficult to explain. To our utter shame, most of us usually become slightly immune. We reason that we can’t help everyone. We rationalize that they are probably “professional beggars” and not as “bad off” as they present themselves to be. We try to figure out if we should give this beggar 5 cents, or 50 cents ….or nothing at all.  We close our eyes. I am not in the least proud of this, but ask others who have lived in countries where there are beggars and I think they will have the same stories.

Beggars do vary from culture to culture.  If I were to be able to choose where I was going to be a beggar, I would definitely pick a Muslim country. One of the five pillars of Islam is to give alms daily. Among other things, that means that beggars become an important part in being able to fulfill one’s religious obligations. Now, don’t misunderstand. Being a beggar in any place is a belittling, difficult life. It usually means being dirty. It usually involves humbly asking for hand- outs. It means long hours of boredom and inactivity. Often one is hungry and without shelter, etc. etc. But if you have a place in the social structure it at least helps one’s self-concept. You are fulfilling a need. You are accepted. 

A tragically interesting sidenote to the beggars within Muslim cultures are the Talibe boys. At least that was the term in Senegal. These are boys ranging in age from 4 to 18. They have been sent by their parents to a mullah to learn the Quran.  Part of their daily obligation is to beg enough money to support the mullah and themselves. They often travel in groups and swarm you the minute you are out of your home. They used to have distinctive red large tomato paste cans, but this is not so much the case anymore.  What do we give them? If we give them money, our assumption is that it goes to feed the mullah first and only them as an afterthought.  Many expatriates package peanuts or crackers, or other good snacks and keep them in their cars to hand out the window as one drives by. Or you break off part of your sandwich that you just purchased and give to the boys. The reasoning is if we give food the boys immediately eat it. We are helping them, but maybe not perpetuating the system.  Many missionaries are engaged in serving these Talibe boys. Some have the permission and blessing of the mullah to do this.  But we have had other friends who have been jailed for months because of their ministry to the Talibe.

However, none of these are the “beggar” intimated in “poor in spirit”. Rather, the verse refers to the beggars who are starving to death. These are the beggars who can’t even lift their bowl to the passersby to ask for a bit of money. These are the homeless, dying individuals that Mother Theresa of India took to her hospice in order for them to have a place of dignity in which to die. These are the lowest of the low. This is the word “poor” that is used in the first beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Matthew 5:3.