If you get conned and your intentions were good, what then?

My local supermarket had some local Hells Angels doing a food drive weekend before last. Just last weekend the Merciless Souls were out there. I wonder who's up this coming weekend ?

 

I won't give money to panhandlers. All the years I spent living in Boston, NYC and Baltimore have jaded me on them.

Instead I'll give to charitable organizations that help the less fortunate or volunteer my time.

 

Hells Satans? Sons of Anarchy?

The Charities at my local supermarket have been there seven days a week for the past two years. It's ridiculous. I used to politely decline, now I semi abuse them on a bad day.

 

I agree with all of this, except for the part about outcomes being the only thing that matters.

Here's my reasoning. The outcomes of my choices will probably last, at the outside, a hundred years -- maybe two if I'm extraordinary, which I'm not. But my soul, if I'm immortal, will last forever. If this is right -- and I'm aware that some people who contribute to this forum think it's all over when your body dies -- then who I am, what I am becoming for eternity, is actually more important than what I accomplish.

We still need to be discerning. But the worst mistake we can make is not to misjudge the situation, much less be taken advantage of. It's to be, or become, something that is unjust or unloving.

A couple quotations on mistakes from one of my favorite writers, George MacDonald:

God was not a hard master; if she had made a mistake, he would pardon her, and either give her work here, where she found herself, or send her elsewhere. (Mary Marston, ch. 26)

Doubtless Gibbie, as well as many a wiser man, might now and then make a mistake in the embodiment of his obedience, but even where the action misses the command, it may yet be obedience to him who gave the command, and by obeying one learns how to obey. (Sir Gibbie, ch. 42)
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That is, the only way to get better at recognizing the right thing is to try and do the right thing.

 

Honest Gullibility?