What’s in your heart?

What’s in your wallet? 

The answer to that question is no longer a humorous campaign for credit cards. Today, for many Twin Cities families living through the pandemic, the answer is a matter of survival.  

If you have cash in your wallet and money in the bank, you still probably have a job. You may be working from home, which means you are likely spending less on items like that, in the Before Times, you routinely paid for: gasoline, parking, coffee drinks, lunches out, clothes, haircuts or makeup.

You are probably not planning vacations overseas, attending movies or concerts, or heading to the stadium to cheer on your teams. And your kids have the computers and internet connection they need for distance learning.

Not everyone has fared so well, and many wallets are all but empty. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has put it, “We are all weathering the same storm, but we are not all in the same boat.” 

More than 300,000 Minnesotans are still unemployed, and the federal unemployment supplement expired over three months ago. Some parents can’t search for new employment while schools remain closed. And many families don’t have access to the technology – computer and internet – that would enable parents to continue job searching and help their children learn online. 

Mortgage, rent and utility bills are going unpaid. Demand at foodbanks has tripled compared to last year at this time. Survival hangs in the balance, and winter has barely begun. 

Writers including Robert Reich have called the disparate effects of COVID “a tale of two pandemics.” While those of us with cash in our wallets have much to be grateful for, we also are called to help those whose wallets are empty. 

How much do we save each week by working from home? The cost of a tank of gas? The equivalent of a week’s worth of coffee drinks? The price of a lunch downtown? 

Now consider how that amount of money, contributed weekly or monthly, could help a young mother who’s lost her job, a teen who’s trying to complete his GED, or an older worker training for new employment after a layoff. 

An amount we once considered trivial – if we considered it at all – can mean the difference for an individual or family trying to stay afloat until they can go back to work. We can keep the cash in our wallets, or we can use some of it to make a real difference for people whose wallets are empty. 

Maybe, in this season of worry for so many, we need to ask a different question: What’s in your heart?