No hard feelings from this end; I just wish that there was an outright display of aggression rather than the constant subliminal undermining in her “friendly” letters. At the moment, this hostility manifests itself in well-wishing letters and a selection of mind-bending drawings, clearly intended to induce vertigo first, psychosis second. I can handle the impressionist self portraits, but not the really trippy stuff like the pencils that are twice the size of her house and what looks like a demonic brood of hens living lives next door.
I don’t blame her; I don’t know if I’d like me either. I felt really convicted the other day. I was talking with someone about whether it’s good enough to just give cash, and we both decided that it wasn’t. It’s obviously way better than nothing, but for me, I’ve got direct debit set up, which basically means that in no way do I ever have to actually think about her. To my shame, last week was also the first time I’d written her a letter. I sent her photos which I specified were for viewing, not darts practice, hoping that it’ll go some way towards reparation, but I highly doubt it.
Now for those who write to their sponsor child regularly, you probably think I’m an awful person – which means you have both compassion and sound judgment – but I’m betting there are others in a similar situation. Maybe I think that if I have a sponsor child, it will counteract my consumerism, but I don’t think it works like that. It’s a bit like saying that Mussolini was a good guy because he rescued a pigeon once.
Tim Minchin wrote a really good song about people wasting money on ridiculous stuff and then giving loose change to assuage their guilt, the link of which I’d provide except that it’s got a lot of naug*ty words in it. Even though I don’t usually like him, I thought it was particularly brilliant because he sung it at a fundraising event for Oxfam.
On a lighter note, one of my friends had a kid called Jesus who she never referred to as Hay-susse just to annoy me, and she insisted that this kid was living the high life. She once got a letter from him talking about his new TV, and at the time she could hardly afford a TV herself so it all got a bit weird. He eventually severed all ties and ran away; possibly to shoot Season 13 of Cribs.
On an even lighter note, there’s the charity stuff that I really don’t feel guilty about. I got an invitation to a fundraising dinner at Chutney Mary’s the other day from a guy that I vaguely knew, on behalf of a friend of his that he probably hardly knew, for a dog that I neither knew, nor cared to know. Why? The dog had had an operation and they needed to cover his medical bills. I didn’t go partly because it was a dog and dogs are far inferior to cats, but also because there’s probably less degrees of separation between me and the pope than me and those dog owners. What I really felt like saying in the RSVP was: “I need a crown on my back tooth and you don’t see me down at the pound rattling a tin in front of the German Shepherds.” I didn’t, because that would have been mean, and dogs that are in the pound probably don’t have much in the way of disposable income.
This blog had no real direction, no structure, nothing in the way of plot and was bordering on didacticism; definitely not my intention. Let’s just say that it’s an interesting thing to think about. I don’t have any answers, and I’m nowhere near it, but I’ll tell you this: when I watch the following clip, I feel like I’m one step closer.
megsjessie 
Hey Megs – loving the blog 😉 On the topic of letters and sponsor children I was surprised and encouraged to read this letter from a previously sponsored child to her sponsor. Lillian is a bit older and hence there was no hauntingly large pencils drawn, however what was so shocking to me was how much of an impact our written words can have to a child, even if they can’t fully express it when they are younger. Keep up the good work wordsmith green 😉
http://www.compassion.com.au/cmspage.php?intid=719&intversion=26