A painfully honest moment

I was waiting in my car at a stoplight one afternoon in November, when a boy that looks about 14 approaches my car with a sponge to wash my window. As he gives me the questioning eyebrow, I mouth the word "no," shake my head and wave my hands at him. He looks at me, pretending not to understand, and comes closer with the sponge. I begin to feel frustrated, because I know that everyone in this country understands the word "NO," so I say it a little louder, shake my head a little stronger, and wave my hands a little wider. But the boy continues to feign ignorance and begins to wipe my windshield. What can I do? He has pulled the wiper blade away from my windshield and there is soap everywhere, so it's not like I can just honk and he will go away. I feel angry at being trapped by his deceit, yet as he continues to wash my windshield I think to myself, "What 14 year-old boy stands on a street corner, trying to wash windows in the hot afternoon sun, just for fun? No boys that I know of. Perhaps he really needs money and this is the only way he knows to get it. Why isn't he in school? Perhaps he has no parents. Perhaps his parents can't or won't provide for him. What would it hurt me to give him 10 shekels? He looks like a nice kid. Maybe I've lived too many years in a city, being solicited by beggars, and I've lost the Christlike compassion I should feel."

As all these thoughts are going through my mind, the boy finishes my window, and I must confess, it looks pretty good. Of course, the Jerusalem Center staff had just washed and vacuumed my car the day before, so it didn't really need it, but at least the boy had used clean water and a squeegee instead of a dirty rag. Then he comes around to the driver's side window, puts his face down close and holds out his hand. I feel at this moment the fear that comes from being confronted by a stranger who wants something from me. I know what I look like through the windshield of my nice new BYU car--white and wealthy. And this young stranger is standing very close to me and my children, with his hand out. The fear and the frustration that come from being manipulated overwhelms my Christian reasoning and shaking my head I say through the window "I told you no in the first place. No! I won't pay you!" He backs away, the light turns green, and I accelerate through the intersection.

I feel terrible. I wanted to assume the best of this boy--I wanted to be Good--and I didn't because I was afraid and angry. As I drive, I realize I have to turn around to get into the nearby gas station, and in my embarrassment, and because of my sadness both for the boy and for myself, I consider stopping at the corner to give him some money. But as I come closer, I see him asking another driver if he can wash his window. This driver also waves him away, but he is a local, and of the same ethnic group as the boy. And the boy doesn't push it; he just walks away. This driver is not a white, female foreigner whose gender, language barrier or colonialist compassion can be taken advantage of. So instead of stopping, I drive past him to the gas station with my 10 shekels.

Months later, I still feel sad that I let fear and anger determine my actions. I know what I should have done:

    "And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.
     Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—
     For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?
     And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another" (Mosiah 4:16-21).