Theme of Discussion Zoom Meeting: Helping the Helpless

Email: rgordon118@tampabay.rr.com

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I was sitting with four old friends – all in our eighties or early nineties, in the outside eating area of a local bagel shop, when I noticed for at least the fifth time in the last couple of weeks, a sickly slim woman with tattered gray slacks, ranting and raving to herself – no cell phone in sight. Her eyes were glassy and darting from side to side. Her fingers pointing out like daggers. She was shoeless. She was alone. Suddenly she jumped from her chair and walked into the shopping center parking lot where she stopped every several feet, and just stood in place, rambling on and on, not paying any attention to cars moving in and out of parking spots around her. I feared she would be run down.

I called the police for the fourth time in the last month, telling them I feared she would be run down, injured or killed. The operator said almost every day for the last couple of weeks the same woman at or near the bagel shop had been reported to the police. But she would again send an officer to the scene. I waited for several minutes, when a lady officer arrived in a patrol car. I identified myself as the caller. The officer told me that after my last call the woman had been baker acted, put away for a few days in a mental hospital, and then released.

I suspected she was homeless, I suspected she got whatever money she could make by begging, perhaps even prostituting, easy prey as she stood alone mumbling to herself in front of bank right alongside the busiest road in the community – Highway 19 – adjacent to the bagel shop.

The officer took the woman into custody and apparently off again to the baker act facility. But a week later, the mumbling, ranting lady was back in place at the bagel shop, apparently a danger to no one but herself. I knew I had to somehow reach out to help this woman, but what was I to do? What resources did I have available to help a hopeless woman who if she had been a dog, someone would be called from the ASPCA to rescue her and escort her to a shelter.

Now my questions for you:

1. Assuming the three friends chose not to help, what might their reasons have been?

2. Assuming the four friends were all woman, would they have been more likely to help?

3. How about if the friends were all in their thirties or forties, would they have been more likely to reach into their hearts for assistance? Does the age or sex of the possible helpers influence what help is offered? How about their religious views? Would a believer be more likely to extend a helping hand than an atheist? What role, if any, do religious convictions play in reaching out to the helpless?

4. Would you have tried to help the woman?

5. Would you have felt obligated to help her?

6. What steps might you have taken to offer help?

7. Are we endangering ourselves when we try to offer some help?

8. What are the signs that the helpless stranger is on drugs, or mentally deranged?

9. How do we react to someone who seems homeless, jobless, penniless and helpless, perhaps standing along the exit of a busy highway with a handmade sign asking for food and money?

10. Why do so many of those in dire need refuse to ask for help?

11. Can your constant need to help the helpless be a sign of suffering from an obsession that in itself may be a sign of a mental illness?

12. When should we reach into our pocket to offer her a few bucks or just drive off just leaving her in the distance?

13. How should we react to the handicapped or helpless (either physically or mentally) who refuse our help?

14. In the early days of our Country (say, in the 1600s) how did the typical American react to helping the helpless?

15. Can you judge the value of a society and how much care they give to the helpless?

16. How equipped, prepared are the police in helping the helpless, especially those who are mentally ill and homeless? Consider Orlando, for example.

17. How can we help the helpless and homeless in Pinellas County? More in Pinellas County? Especially those with mental health problems? In Florida? In the United States?

18. If we slip the helpless a few dollars, are we most likely only enabling them to dull their senses with liquor – or buy some illicit drug? From government sources? From colleges or university sources?

19. How common is it that the homeless and mentally ill will be a threat to themselves or to those who try to help them?

20. If we have reported her several times to the police only to see her soon re-appear in her helpless state, might we get some help from the local newspaper? Another source for getting a newspaper to write an article drawing attention – and perhaps even help – for someone in desperate need for assistance?

21. Under what circumstances might it be wise to take a photo of the troubled woman?

22. Is there any organization within your community that you could contact to possibly give her the help she needed? How do you evaluate such organizations?

23. In November 2022, how is New York City broadening its power to get care to the homeless and the helpless who are mentallty ill even if they pose no danger to anyone else but themselves? How does this broaden the baker act that may have played a role in the way the helplessly sick lady was handled in the bagel shop mentioned in the very beginning of this discussion guide?

Quotations

1. “Money will not last. Fame will not last. But how you touch others' lives will always stay behind!” ― Avijeet Das

2. “Help a hand or hand a help; always be handing out help or simply be a helping hand!”― Peter-Cole C. Onele

3. “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others and if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” --Dalai Lama

4. “Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.”—Sally Koch

5. “When a person is down in the world, an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching.” Edward G. Bulwer

6. “There are two kinds of people in the world, first those who run away from danger, then there are those who run towards danger, to see if someone needs help.” -- Abhijit Naskar

7. “Progress depends on our brain. The most important part of our brain, that which is neocortical, must be used to help others and not just to make discoveries.” -- Rita LeviMontalcini

8. “Don’t deceive yourself; laughing at someone’s weakness is not the way to reveal your strength. Your strength is in the help you offer, not the mockeries you deliver!”--Israelmore Ayivo

9. “The helpless can’t help the helpless.”— Tennessee Williams

10. “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

11. “Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.” – Booker T. Washington

12. “Life doesn’t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all.” — Erik Erikson

The End