On Leaving the Umbrella
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Just me on Tuesday, August 10, 2010 4:52 PM
Recently I was shopping in a fabric store and left my purse sitting in the cart while I examined fabric fifteen feet away. It was within eyesight the whole time, but still, a woman warned me to be careful: she’d had hers stolen that way.
I smiled and thanked her, but internally I rolled my eyes. Fabric store clientele seems to consist mainly of elderly ladies and women with children under age two. Is it really necessary to suspect mothers and grandmothers venturing out to buy thread of being a potential handbag thieves?
My husband once suggested that it would be interesting to spend an entire day at the grocery store *trying* to get someone to steal your purse. You know: leave it in the cart and hide around the corner, then see if anyone takes the bait. “Probably,” he guessed, “no one would.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I told him. “It wouldn’t get stolen, but every other person who passed you would warn you that someone was going to steal it.”
Why the suspicion?
There are myriad answers to this question, I think, beginning with the fact that every screen in our homes sits ready to inform us of man’s worst transgressions against man at the mere click of a button. But that can’t be the whole reason, and I think that part of it can be attributed to the fact that the members of our society seem to take joy in going around telling each other how bad we all are.
I can’t blame us. It’s human nature, after all. And crime does exist. Sin exists abundantly. Purses do get stolen, and far more horrifying things happen every day.
They don’t happen to most people, though. Neither do most people do them. I think most people are trying, as best they can, to live good and trustworthy lives. Many of them don’t have the right tools, or the right support, and they stumble often (as we all do), but they’re trying.
I don’t think I’m being a naive optimist when I say: I believe that the vast majority of people would never steal your purse out of your grocery cart.
I’m not saying that caution is a bad idea. It’s good common sense to be careful with our possessions. But I wonder if it’s possible that too much caution, stemming from and feeding suspicion, might actually be harmful.
What about our children, for instance? If they grow up being constantly told that every stranger is out to get them, what will they learn about human nature? And is it the lesson we want them to learn?
I can imagine a teenager flirting with the idea of - for instance - shoplifting. We know many teenagers try it at least once, but how much more tempting might it be for a kid who’d been told his whole life that he was surrounded with thieves? He might feel he was just joining the crowd.
Ideally, I suppose, we’d trust the right people and mistrust the ones who deserved it, but since it’s usually impossible to tell the difference among strangers, which way should we err?
I don’t have the answer to that question, but in my mind is the image of Jesus at the Last Supper. He knew Judas would betray him and yet he let him sit there among the apostles while he consecrated the first Eucharist. What does that say about how we should treat those worthy of mistrust?
As I said, I don’t have the answer, but it’s food for thought.
My daughter and I went to the library yesterday and we left our umbrella in the vestibule. When we came out and grabbed it, the man who’d been sitting nearby actually thanked me.
“I’m so glad you felt comfortable leaving your umbrella there,” he said. “It seems like people don’t trust each other any more.”
I had trusted him, and it made him happy.
Maybe a different time the umbrella would have disappeared while we were inside. But I can still remember the smile on that stranger’s face, and you know what? I think it might be worth the risk.
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