News-Record.com

Sunday tends to be one of those days, especially when I'm at church.

I attend a downtown High Point church, which attracts people seeking charity. During the week, the church staff responds to legitimate needs when it can. Often, this involves sending someone to an appropriate agency -- and our church supports organizations that specialize in helping the down and out.

On Sundays, it's fairly common for church members to be approached by someone asking for money.

This presents a dilemma. On the one hand, it's generally not a good idea to simply hand over cash, which probably will be used to satisfy a drug or alcohol habit. On the other hand, Christians are supposed to give when asked -- without making judgments.

So, call me a bad Christian. I rarely give money to a panhandler, even at church. But I almost always end up listening to the story. If it makes sense, and I’m having a good Christian day, I try to help.

Once I walked with a man to a nearby grocery store and bought the disposable diapers and baby formula he said he needed for his infant child. Later, someone told me those items can easily be converted to cash by drug addicts. Oh, well. Maybe this time the need was real.

On other occasions, I've purchased food for someone who said the cupboard was bare at home.

Then there are times when the requests are pretty ridiculous. One man asked me to take him to the grocery store and buy him some steaks. He said he had guests at home and wanted to cook them a nice meal. I may be gullible, but this guy pressed his luck too far.

Another favorite, this one told to me by a former colleague: He was approached by a man one Super Sunday who asked for money so he could go to a Super Bowl party. That play never made it to the goal line, either.

Most of the time, panhandlers at least try to offer a decent hard-luck story. Being stranded and needing bus fare or gasoline money is probably a more common plea than asking for food, because they can always be referred somewhere for a free meal when what they want is cash. Some will weave such a complex yarn that you'd think it must be real, but when you ponder it or ask for it to be repeated, it begins to unravel. I've heard some ingenious elaborations, but panhandlers are better off if they keep it simple.

They also should follow some protocols. If I could write a panhandlers' code of conduct, it would prohibit practices like the following.

This past Sunday, my wife and I were having a Halloween party at church for her choir of 5- and 6-year-olds. A man entered the building and asked her for money to fill a prescription at the pharmacy. I was farther away, reading a story to the kids.

Margaret noticed that his "prescription," which he showed her, was old and crumpled, so his story didn't hold up as valid. She told him, truthfully, that she didn't have any money anyway. So he left.

But it should be panhandler protocol that you don't enter a building where small children are gathered. That can be seen as threatening.

The other instance occurred a couple of months ago. It was a weeknight, about 10 p.m., and we'd just gone to bed. Someone knocked on the front door. I got dressed and went to investigate, finding a man who told a story about his car breaking down a few blocks away. He said he needed money to get it fixed.

He wasn't at all convincing, so, not being a good Christian just then, I told him sternly to get the ---- out of my neighborhood. My large, snarling dog might have been more persuasive, so he promptly disappeared.

The protocol there is that you do not panhandle by knocking on doors at night. There are some elderly people in my neighborhood, and this sort of thing is very frightening to them. In fact, someone must have called the police because a patrol car cruised up the street a short time later.

Panhandlers can be scary no matter where you meet them. In my experience, none has become hostile or demanded money, and High Point police report few such problems. But, when you're potentially dealing with crackheads or other desperate and possibly armed people, it's not hard to imagine a dangerous situation.

There are no local ordinances against panhandling in High Point, and I don't advocate for any. Sometimes people really are in difficulty and need to ask for help. Sometimes people just want to make an easy buck. It's still a free country.

But if panhandlers have a trade association, I suggest it adopt some professional standards. If they follow the rules, I'll be more inclined to practice Christian charity now and then.