It’s Halloween, a balmy, magical night for children. My husband took our daughter out trick-or-treating. And I’m alone at home–a nice two-story stucco house in an old tree-lined suburb, right on the edge of the west side.
“I don’t mean any disrespect, ma’am,” he says. He holds a mask in one hand, as some kind of credential. He stretches the other hand toward me, palm up, a soft brown bowl. “I heard you were giving out quarters.” We both look at my bowl. “My wife and I, we wanted to take the children out for hot dogs after trick-or-treating.”
Another friend, Nancy, shakes her head. “When someone asks me for money, I just send them to the food pantry, or tell them about the homeless shelter.” She’s fed up with being asked, prefers to maintain distance between herself and the needy.
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The Halloween man has disturbed the energy field around me, and in my life such disturbances sometimes provoke a reaction. One morning a newsletter slips through my mail slot. A sidebar catches my eye: Maimonides’ eight dimensions of spiritual giving. Maimonides, the 12th-century Jewish philosopher and scholar, set out to index and organize the great body of Jewish ethical teachings and analyses, whacking through the underbrush to reconcile inconsistencies and contradictions, to instruct and guide the perplexed. The sidebar in the newsletter is a simple list, numbered one through eight, lowest to highest–the dimensions of giving. Oh, how we love a simple numbered list.
- Giving reluctantly or with regret.
She died a few years ago, alone at age 80, in that house across the street. Her body lay there for several days. Her son, who lived in Iowa, called and called and got no response. At least Jane doesn’t have to worry about Halloween anymore.
One day, in the parking lot at Whole Foods, a woman approached me and my husband. She was thin, wearing a dirty old winter coat. She was crying: she needed diapers for her baby.
