Is our "care" motivated by guilt?

I was talking with a young business person about my humanitarian work and how to promote it successfully. He suggested I needed to understand that everyone who gives to humanitarian projects or organisations does so to feel less guilty.  We feel guilty for the personal power and ease we enjoy, as those who are relatively privileged in the world, when we are confronted with others suffering hunger and so on. He was suggesting that all successful humanitarian fundraising is about cultivating that guilt so people give more to relieve it!  So, according to this analysis, we give enough to be able to continue to enjoy what we enjoy without our pleasure being spoiled by feeling guilty about it. He did not see this as a bad thing to use! He simply wanted to me understand this was the thing I needed to appeal to! He was saying we give to take away a negative, not to increase a positive.

I did not like his analysis. Yet I have to admit there is truth in this when I pay attention to my own motivation for the sacrifices I make. I used to feel this way every time I read one of Jesus damning parables like the one about sheep and goats in Matthew 25:31-46. And then I gave to reduce guilt in precisely the way he described, or to lessen my fear of judgement! I would freely enjoy my privilege while also giving something to most charities that asked for it. It is actually now that I have less and am needing to budget more carefully that my motives are becoming cleaner. I do give out of discomfort with things I enjoy while others are suffering but not so I can continue to enjoy those things. Rather, if those enjoyments no longer feel right while my friends who live in poverty are suffering, I let go of those things. I do not try to live exactly as they live. That is neither possible nor helpful. However I do ask whether I enjoy things because I really need them or just out of habit and a sense of entitlement.  I no longer think of my income as mine to do with as I please. It is there for love. It is there to love others as I love myself.  

 This weekend I sold my sports car, my lovely little late model Mazda MX5 Roaster (manual and soft top of course). I replaced it with a Hybrid that was $12,000 less than I got for the sports car.  This money will, mostly, pay back money I have given to humanitarian work that was set aside as tax savings and for my own future planning. I have "borrowed from the future" to respond to some needs I couldn't respond to without doing so. The money will also pay for a trip to Kenya and some other personal needs.   

Not all those decisions were good decisions. A wise person has said, "Every 'yes' is a 'no'". When we cannot say "no" to human needs that we are faced with, that is a problem. We cannot relieve all human suffering.  Sometimes all we can do is be present with someone in suffering neither they nor we can change, Yet I could change these things by taking from money for my own needs. It was "my" money I thought. I had the personal power to make that decision. And so I did. Yet this was a weakness not a strength, a vice not a virtue.  This was, about my unwillingness to be present to suffering when I had the personal power to take it away. This was not living in love because I did not love myself in these decisions. I said "no" to myself and "yes" to others.

When I put my car on "TradeMe" I cried. I had no idea I loved it so much. It really has brought me a lot of fun and joy, far more than I even thought possible from driving a car. It looked very expensive and that embarrassed me. I don't like to be thought of as "rich". I feel shame associated with wealth. Why? Is this "true" guilt (guilt because I am behaving badly) or "false" guilt? It is surely a good thing for my behaviour to change when I become aware I am living unjustly. However the shame I felt was all about other's opinion. I care far too much about what others think of me.

Yet this little car met a real need. The past three years have been mentally and emotionally tough for me as I have transitioned from "Nicholas Ian Frater" to "Nicola Sian Frater". Coming out publicly as a trans woman was the easy bit. The really tough times were leading up to that decision. However the emotional and mental journey through the hormonal side of a girl's puberty at age 64-66 has also been rough. And it has triggered childhood trauma and taken me to some very dark places I almost did not survive. This is not an easy thing to go through while everyone is expecting you to have the maturity of a 66 year old!

So my little sports car was a comfort through some of the darkest experiences of my life. That, I now realise, was a need. I should not have felt guilty about it. I did, rightly I think, feel discomfort around the harm I was doing to the earth by driving a petrol driven car and enjoying its power and acceleration. We use most fuel when accelerating. Getting to the speed limit in the shortest time possible (and making some noise doing so) was, for me, one of the really fun parts of driving this little car. And I so loved driving it around windy mountain roads. I would hop in and drive it just for the pleasure of doing so. 

It was right, though, to enjoy it for a time and now it is right to let it go, Now that I have sold my dear little car I am very happy with that decision. It feels right that I enjoyed it for a time and right to let it go now and look back on that as a wonderful memory. 

Coming back to the young business person's analysis, I don't want to manipulate money out of wealthy people using guilt. This is not an "ends justifies means" situation for me. I do want to facilitate community with others who really desire to journey deeper into love for those who are poor. I want to connect with those who desire to live in love for self and others in a wholesome and mature way, to grow friendships with people who are poor and powerless, both in their own communities and in in our global community, and to learn the courage to say "no" as well as the courage to say "yes", to learn the strength, at times, to be present to those who are suffering when we cannot change that suffering without saying "no" to one's own real needs.