Judging The Needy

In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller shares an eye-opening moment at a Safeway grocery store. When a lady in front of him pulled out food stamps, he was surprised. They looked more like money than stamps. Donald felt awkward and witnessed a similar awkwardness between the clerk and the woman. He wished he could buy her groceries, but was afraid that would cause even more embarrassment.

"The woman never lifted her head" Miller wrote,"as she organized her bags of groceries and set them in her cart. She walked away from the checkout stand in the sort of stiff movements a person uses when they know they are being watched."

Watched? You better know it. Are they spending "government money" (our tax dollars) appropriately?

I can still see myself standing in line with a cart of groceries, our new baby, and . . . food stamps. I can feel the eyes watching as my roast moved down the belt. "A roast on government money?" I imagined anyone nearby thinking. But that roast was my coping mechanism. I put it in the freezer to eat toward the end of the month when funds ran low. Welfare stinks! The roast gave me something to look forward to.

"I had come to believe that because a person is in need," Miller continued, "they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries, the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away." (Blue Like Jazz p. 89-90)


There are people who "use" the system: People who have another baby or get divorced and still live together so the dependent mother can collect a check.

There are some who are homeless because they do drugs. And there are those who do drugs because they are homeless. That's how they cope.

Here's my question? Can we, by any means, give someone dignity? Or take it away? If so, how?

Was Donald "judging" this woman by wanting to buy her groceries? Or was he moved by compassion?

Would love to hear/see your thoughts.

Because . . .

I'm Forever Growing,
Lonnie