When I was in China, the tourguide saw me stop to give alms to beggars. He watched in wonder, and asked me why I was ‘tipping’ the beggars.
I told him our god walks the earth in disguise dressed as a beggar and any man who does not give alms with both hands is stricken with a curse and flung screaming into a lake of fire.
One might think that an odd reason to give alms, or even an impure or superstitious reason, but no one can say it is a prosaic reason. To see god in a beggar’s careworn and quotidian face is the very soul of romance.
The Mechanical Dragon 