I was at Mass last Sunday when a man in front of me asked to borrow a pen.

I gave him one and a few seconds later, he handed me a bulletin on which he’d scribbled: “Me and my family homeless. Can you please help me and my family out so we can eat? We sleeping in my car and we need milk.”

This was far from the first time I’d been approached for money. But it was different than all the other occasions, when I was walking down the street, standing in line at McDonald’s, riding the train – not sitting in a pew.

I’ve long mastered the art of sidestepping panhandlers. I tell them I’ve got no cash. I smile at them without looking into their eyes. I apologize profusely, not listening to their stories or requests, and keep walking.

But there are times when that doesn’t work.

One afternoon sophomore year, I rode my bike to the Public Market. My wheels were in motion when I heard a voice call, “Excuse me, miss!”

I instinctively hit the brakes and stopped. A woman approached me with a makeshift flyer and recited some facts about a “children’s shelter” she was “raising
money” for.

“Really, no amount’s too small,” she said warmly.

I was annoyed that she was spinning tales instead of plainly asking for help. Still, I emptied my change purse in her hands. She counted it.

“This ain’t even a dollar,” she said, looking up at me, elevating my irritation to full-fledged fury.

“I’ll take it back, then,” I said boldly. Stupidly.
As she pocketed the change and condescendingly told me to have a nice day, she wore the expression of a kid who’s been caught blowing out the candles of her little sister’s birthday cake. Someone with a tiny victory.

Last week in Chicago, a man was punched in the face by a panhandler to whom he’d given two dollars.People who watched the incident chased the suspect as he fled the platform, and cops later arrested him.

“You simply don’t foresee something like this happening when you’re just trying to help somebody out,” the victim told the Chicago Tribune.

In church, how was I supposed to ignore this man? I cringed at the note in my hands. I pulled two singles out of my wallet, enough for a gallon of milk.

The man thanked me, and when Mass was dismissed, he sauntered up the center aisle of Gesu, asking people for their spare change. Part of a well-practiced routine, no doubt.

I left Mass feeling like a sucker. But if I hadn’t spared the two bucks, I would’ve felt worse.

Our urban campus is my favorite thing about Marquette. I’ve met people at the homeless shelters and soup kitchens who have changed my life. Life’s roughed them up and turned them gray. They’re in positions to be panhandlers who deceive the naive and clock the kindhearted, but they choose better.

Panhandling isn’t annoying. It’s disheartening. It’s a lose-lose situation where one person hungers for what the other hides, and it keeps us from treating each other like people with stories and earnings.

After Mass, I called my dad.

He told me he’s seen kids used as props and people stealing from GoodWill drop boxes.

“But I believe in karma, you know?” he said. “People are either going to pay for what they do, or they already have.”

That conversation lasted less than five minutes.

That’s all it took to remind me what I have to be thankful for.

I’m lucky to be part of a faith that keeps me blindly kind. I’m lucky to have grown up under the rules of a man who preaches karma. I’m lucky to know people at Guest House and St. Ben’s who have gambled away their savings and drank away their marriages but still put their pants on every morning, swearing to be better. I’m lucky to have been shown that for every guy knocking someone out on a platform, there are a dozen chasing after him.

I’m lucky to know the world as a place where kindness always wins.