This Little Piggy

We regularly get asked for financial assistance from people who are often seeking money for what seem like legitimate reasons. We can't follow up with every story so we take the way of generosity in Christ's name. After all, the requests are nearly always modest, sometimes as little as ten dollars and rarely more than twenty-five.

We do get scammed. One guy wanted money to buy a new lock for one he broke getting into his own room in a rooming house. He was responsible for a replacement, he brought in the estimate for a new one from Canadian Tire, we gave him the money. Three months later he was back with the same request having totally forgotten that he had been in before. A regular who has always been straightforward came back to us claiming that she had lost the cheque I wrote her earlier in the day. She promised that this wasn't a sneaky way to get double the money. It was. She cashed them both. I don't like this at all, and it makes me rather wary. Yet in both cases it didn't really amount to much.

Enter the piggies at the trough of the Canadian Senate. A number of them are racing to pay back thousands of dollars of my taxpayer money -- well, our money -- while squealing they have done nothing wrong. It is sickening greed, as are the bloated expense claims of many politicians who get caught with their hands in the public till. And what about those thieving swine from FIFA (forgive my anger please) who have pocketed millions on millions for years? It seemed that everyone knew, yet it took forever for charges to be laid.

For some reason a lot of people get really testy about the small potatoes a very few poor people winkle out of folk like me. The stereotypes are rife and the contempt palpable. Yet when I read my bible God and Jesus seem to favour the poor over the well-fixed.

Sure the greedy senators will get slaps on the wrist, but I wonder why we have such double standards at times. No, I don't like it when I'm duped by those who show up here looking for assistance. But I would take them over the political and corporate crooks any day.

Thoughts?