(This column appeared in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution of Dec. 25, 1963)
Social workers — or “them welfares,” as a friend of mine is wont to call them — see a lot of trouble, and for that reason may be in a better position than some of us to comment on human frailty. Carolyn J. French, senior public welfare supervisor at the county Department of Family and Children Services, joggled my attention the other day with something she wrote in the department’s house organ, “Our Mirror.”
Writing some reflections on Christmas, Mrs. French began: “If I were to receive an anonymous check for $10,000 to be spent for Christmas gifts in any manner in which I saw fit, I would attempt to find the most ‘unworthy’ persons receiving assistance … and lavish gifts upon them.”
Before you get on the phone to castigate the forces of public assistance for throwing money down a rathole, hear Mrs. French’s reason. She is plumb tuckered out from having those who want to do a bit of Christmas giving specify a “needy, worthy” family. She suspects that some of those who give food and clothing hope to receive vicariously by having some “worthy” person heap praise and appreciation on them. And she ends with the wistful hope that her fellow citizens, believing in the dignity of man as a human being, might learn to give “to meet the needs of the receiver and not the giver.”
Of course, Mrs. French is right. We have but to examine our own worthiness to realize that. Who among us deserves all the good that comes our way?
There’s no better time than Christmas for looking at the riches that come your way, unbidden, sometimes unwished for and almost always undeserved. Who deserves the beauty of a winter sunset? How do you work and pay for the morning sunlight on a frost-silvered field? Who among us earns a baby’s smile or a puppy’s waggish greeting?
Christmas cards are a tangible evidence of my most valuable and undeserved riches — friends. I’m a poor friend to my friends. I seldom write the kind, appreciative or sympathetic note, make little visits, or dispatch gifts. I hate to visit on the telephone so much that I feel like a prisoner in chains when some friend with time on her hands rings up to chat. (It’s terrible to come loping from the woodpile or from hauling rocks or sweeping pine needles off the roof to hear the voice of some leisurely loll-a-bed friend inquire languidly, “Whatcha doin’?”)
Still, friends are faithful. And when the Christmas cards come in, you know they are there, that you have them, that the neglected bonds of affection still endure.
If we have sunshine and love without deserving them, how dare we ask that some poor devil who is sick and out of work be “worthy” of a little food and a few doodads for his children.”
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