$4.01

Oh no! I can't believe I am going to get 99 cents change back. I'd rather be able to fold my change and stick it in my billfold, not jingle around for the rest of the day, or worse, lose most of it in the next insatiable couch that comes my way. I see that the clerk has six pennies on top of the register, but they're not in a tray. If they were in a tray, I could assume they were for anyone to use. Can't she sense that I am in need? I blurt out a feeble, "Wait. Let me see if I have a penny here." I reach in my pockets futily, but convincingly, I hope. Why am I so careful to deposit my change in the jar every night? This ritual perpetuates itself leaving me void of much-needed coins at times such as these. Meanwhile, the other customers are beginning to lose patience with my obvious posturing. I feel their stares. I am sure that more than one of them is thinking of offering me a penny themselves. So why do we refuse to intervene in situations when an obvious need presents itself? Could it be that we don't want our gesture of charity to be misconstrued as pity? Perhaps we are uncomfortable with the prospect that we've misread the need thereby offering assistance when none is needed. I sigh at the feeling of pocket lint between my fingers. "Sorry, I guess I don't have one," I lament, accepting my fate of pockets as heavy as my heart. Why do I feel like she owed it to me to take one of the pennies off the register? More importantly, if I felt entitled to it, why didn't I ask her to use one for my transaction? The question begs at the table of society. It's not about the penny. It's about identifying need and responding to it. It's not about me. At least not as the recipient of grace. It's about my own blindness, ignorance, and selfishness in the face of need. I have a laundry list of excuses to match every circumstance in which I withhold assistance to others. Here is the chronicle of my efforts to exchange excuses for action.