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September 10, 2021Part 2
Even before starting the challenge, I’d been toying with the idea of being more generous a little. I’d started getting 10.00 back in cash when I’d grocery shop, and look for opportunities to give it away. One week I passed a guy on the corner asking for money, and rooted around in my bag for the 10 I thought I had, but could only find, randomly, 7.00. I gave that to him, and he said “thanks very much god bless you.” Later that day, I passed him again, and found that ten. I wrestled with giving it to him- I’d already given him money that very day. But so what? I didn’t even miss $7.00. But, what, am I supposed to ignore him now because I did that little thing? I wasn’t even sure I had cash on me, but I looked in my bag and found that $10 I had thought I had, and did give it to him. He said “thanks very much god bless…. Oh my god! Thanks!” when he recognized me from before.
I felt sheepish! It felt so dumb that I’d wrestled with the idea of giving him that little bit of cash, felt bad that I was almost willing to let him walk by my car.
Later that week, I mentioned the idea of tithing to my husband. I told him I’d done the math on our combined salaries, and using the general idea of 10% of our gross income, it came out to $250.00 a week, or around $36 a day.
That’s a lot of money, is what Scott said when I mentioned it.
He said, “that’s not our salary, you have to take off taxes!”
I said “no, I don’t think that’s how tithing works; it’s 10% off your gross. First fruits.” He said, and I quote, “noooooo nononono no no noooo...” He said “you’re talking about the equivalent of multiple car payments!” and “I think we’re more like… 3% tithers.” And “we have a lot, but we shouldn’t we really be more careful about preparing for our own futures?” and “what if we cut our phone bill and gave that?”
All perfectly good and reasonable thoughts, and all things I was wrestling with.
I told him I wanted to try it for 90 days, and that I’d use only my salary, and we could see how it goes. He reluctantly agreed to those terms. So I did the math on my income, and it comes down to around $145 a week. I decided to give 5% to Mary, Queen of the Apostles Parish in the weekly offertory (online), and set that up for a repeating gift right away. The other 5%, I would spend on something else each week; a cause, a particular person, a need. And so, here I go.
I am loving hearing about people’s giving stories. Do you tithe? Do you give in some intentional way that is not strictly tithing? I’d love to hear from you.
