Compassion Over Conditional Charity
How understanding trauma and practicing informed helping can change lives -- and society
With the announcements that SNAP benefits are about to go away, I’ve been dismayed to see — again — how many people who call themselves Christian really despise the poor. They wouldn’t call it that, of course. They imagine “the poor” as versions of Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol — sweet, innocent, overworked, and ever-grateful to their “benefactors.”
In their minds, the poor in America are something else entirely: lazy, criminal, useless, entitled addicts.
But the reality of poverty doesn’t look like Dickens’ Christmas warning tale. The reality is messier, more human. You see people who bend or break laws just to survive. You see people suffering from addiction, and people who don’t attend church or can’t pass a drug test to “qualify” for the right to live.
The truth of poverty, addiction, mental illness, even most petty crime, is that people are traumatized. And if I’m being honest (and I don’t always enjoy admitting it), the people who are cruel to those traumatized souls are traumatized themselves. Cruelty doesn’t come naturally to human beings. To act in inhumane ways, something inside has to be wounded enough to silence what’s most human.
The difference is privilege: some people are just better at hiding it, or can afford to let their pain go unexamined. When the poor act out their trauma, they’re sent to prisons, rehabs, or shelters. When the privileged act out theirs, society often calls it ambition, personality, or “just how they are.”
Understanding, Not Excusing
When I say that people who do these things are traumatized, I’m not saying it’s an excuse. It is not excusable to hurt others — especially those more vulnerable than yourself — ultimately causing them trauma to deal with later in life. But something can be understandable without being excusable. We study the origins of cancer to understand it, not to excuse it. Understanding the underlying causes of addiction, crime, and even mental illness helps people stop it before it begins, and it gives space for someone to grow through it.
The truth of trauma is that it’s not usually what most people think. It’s rarely caused by a single rape, a single abusive relationship, combat duty, or one isolated traumatic event. The far more common form is CPTSD — “complex” post-traumatic stress disorder. This is what happens when a child is raised in a home where basic needs like food, shelter, love, compassion, or autonomy are lacking or unpredictable. Add to that the fact that this person may not have had guidance in “adulting,” and they often rely on the survival behaviors that once kept them alive — behaviors that get amplified in adulthood when stakes are higher and situations are more complicated.
Take, for example, a child raised in a home where corporal punishment is meted out unpredictably. Especially if the parent comes back remorseful later, the lesson the child learns is not, “Do not lie about taking the cookie.” Instead, they learn that “love” looks like unpredictable behavior — and as long as the person comes back and tearfully apologizes, they must be forgiven. Essentially, the child learns how to survive an abusive marriage later in life.
Now imagine that same child had another parent who was constantly critical. The lesson they take from this is that the people you love are supposed to be brutally honest about all of your “faults,” even when you haven’t really done anything extraordinarily wrong. Even if that critical parent is no longer present in adulthood, the lesson sticks: you are bad. These internalized lessons carry into adult life, shaping romantic relationships, job performance, daily interactions with themselves, and the way they treat others. Further abuse does not cure abuse; it validates it.
As that grown child moves through life, they may eventually recognize that what they have been calling “love” and “safety” is not healthy. But people almost always revert to what is familiar, and those who have experienced this kind of trauma can become comfortable in it. Kindness, healthy boundaries, and self-care may feel unfamiliar or even unsafe.
There are times when someone may try something different as a way to break old habits, but “unhealthy coping mechanisms” are complicated. In a society that teaches, “family is everything,” you learn to tolerate disrespect and pretend it doesn’t exist. To manage the pain, you may turn to other forms of relief — drugs, alcohol, or other behaviors that numb or distract from the underlying hurt.
At this point in the cycle, the focus usually shifts to shaming the unhealthy coping mechanisms, rather than addressing the underlying causes. Someone may go to AA and learn about how important it is to recognize your own “character defects,” rather than looking beyond that to understand how they developed and learning to avoid those patterns in the future.
Conditional Church Help
Churches often reinforce this belief on a spiritual level. We’re taught that we’re sinners and need the blood of Jesus to erase our many and terrible sins. In other words, it reinforces the idea that someone is “bad” because they did what they knew how to do to survive. It does not take into account that we are all born into God’s image — good — and our lives and experiences shape who we are and what we do. When churches and other organizations view the needy and addicted as broken people who should prove themselves before getting help, they reinforce the idea that love is conditional.
This is where the claim “it’s the church’s job to help the needy” becomes so damaging. I’ve sat in church budget meetings and special “giving Sundays” directed at everything from faraway missions to church expansion building — but never a Sunday dedicated to building a benevolence fund designed to meet people where they are. Don’t have a valid driver’s license showing you live in this county? Sorry, can’t help you. You drink every day? We need to be good stewards with our money, and you’ll just blow it on booze.
They don’t take into account that these people are simply doing what they know how to survive, and they’ll keep doing it until someone helps address the underlying causes. When money, housing, food, or medical care is given, it’s often conditional: you receive help only when you are at your lowest, and then you are expected to “straighten up your act” immediately.
Radical Giving
This, dear reader, is not the sort of “giving to the needy” that Jesus modeled. Even in Roman “religious circles,” people supported their own, but early Christians went further. They gave freely to anyone, regardless of beliefs, nationality, or circumstances. This radical giving was contagious; people noticed, and more joined in because giving begets giving.
I had a situation recently where someone gave me a large sum of money to handle some financial needs I had: groceries, work on my car, and I was about to lose my apartment. I took care of my needs, then with what was left, I focused on healing myself and helping others. Giving begets generosity, not entitlement, when it’s given freely and with love, rather than with stipulations and rules.
The real Hunter “Patch” Adams (of the movie Patch Adams) was quoted as saying, “Everyone is a patient, and everyone is a doctor.” In essence, this means everyone has something they need, and everyone has something to give.
The danger in our capitalist society is that we believe financial giving is the only way a person can help, and we assume that the poorest of the poor have nothing to offer those who are financially comfortable. But the truth is that a desperately poor person has important life experiences that others can’t even imagine — and hopefully will never experience themselves.
Today, as more and more people sink into poverty while fewer rise to the level of the wealthiest, the “experts” we should look to are those who live in poverty. In a humane society, that expertise should qualify them to survive, share their stories, and offer ideas and life strategies.
Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms and Observation
I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve suggested someone turn to my unhealthy coping mechanisms — drinking, lying, running away, lashing out — and I’ve never heard someone suggest theft, drug use, or crime as a way for others to “get by.”
Society, Poverty, and Collective Narcissism
If we’re going to pull a nation out of the poverty we are experiencing now, it cannot come by reinforcing the idea that the poor deserve it, are bad people, or that “beggars can’t be choosers.” We, as a nation, created the situation where begging became necessary — then shame others for doing it. By this mindset, just like an individual can be a malignant narcissist, so can an entire nation. As a whole, the United States is a narcissist, but individually, we don’t have to act like it. When more people are understanding, freely compassionate, and willing to examine how societal patterns create the very issues we punish, the personality disorder of America can begin to right itself.
Such wonderful insights! Thank you ❤️