My charity epiphany
Oh my goodness gracious, has it been two years? How my life has changed. Well... it's going to take me a while to start finding profound things to comment on again but for now I wanted to start off by sharing a post I recently sent to one of my yahoo groups. I've ammended it slightly to make sense out of context.
Before I share my thoughts, I have to make a request. Comments in the past have sometimes gotten a bit nit-picky. Anyone who gets nit-picky with me nowadays after I've become the "no-nonsense" version of Ruthie is getting ignored or maybe even deleted. You've been warned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Charity~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wanted to talk about the concept of charity. Is it a religious obligation
or an option?
I used to battle with the question of "who DESERVES my kindness and charity". I used to
look at a situation and say, oh but that person got themselves INTO
that situation, they made their bed, now they must lie in it. I
recently had an epiphany. Everyone, everywhere makes mistakes. None
of us is perfect. We all have disabilities and faults. Some of
those are visible, some are hidden. Some of us have addictions, some
of us never learned pro-active ways to approach life, some of us have
personality flaws that turn others off, some of us have actual
physical disabilities, some of us have been widowed or divorced or
raped or conned or oppressed in one form or the other. In ANY
situation, we can always choose to either blame the victim, or simply
to act with the intention of alleviating pain and discomfort.
When Hurricane Katrina (and more recently, Ike) hit the Gulf Coast,
there were some people that might have said- oh well those people who are
stranded and lost everything had the chance to evacuate and chose not
to, or they were stupid enough to buy homes on the coast in a low
lying area so now they made their bed and they must lie in it.
Goodness gracious. Saying comments like that is not only cold-
hearted, it also shows just how much those judgemental people don't
fully understand the whole story. And it's ok. They may NEVER
understand the full story. We never can because each of us only has
limited time and information. As a muslim, I believe that only God
understands the full story. But here on Earth, mankind is his team
of vice-gerants. God is merciful to ALL, regardless of what they did
to get themselves into a situation. How can we, then, say God is
wrong to be merciful to someone who is sleeping on the floor and
basically asking someone else to feed them everyday? Is it wrong to
have mercy on a person in that situation? If I was in that situation
due to some string of unfortunate events, wouldn't I want others to
have mercy on me?? When I see people in a situation I do not want to
be in, I remind myself just how precarious my own life is and how
close I could be to being homeless, or fatally ill, or disabled, or
alone. I do not want that for myself. In fact, it scares me
s**tless. We all make bad, irrational, foolish, or wrong choices now
and again. They seemed like good choices at the time, didn't they.
And we all have lived through the consequences. And we all have very
good reasons for making those very bad choices. And SOMETIMES what
seems on the outside to be a bad or irresponsible choice is ACTUALLY
the best option for the person. We do not know all the details. So
that's why we don't judge.
On the other hand, I also need to comment that we should never *rely*
on other people's mercy. You need to always tie your own camel. You
can't just leap out off a cliff and say, oh but God is merciful so He
will catch me. No, don't be silly. And you also can't blame anyone
when you fall off that cliff and break your legs because no one came
to your rescue. "Where were my muslim sisters?" It just doesn't
work that way. If you are being chased, and come to a cliff and find
it is your only way out and you are prepared to hit the bottom and
break your legs because it is a better option than meeting what is
chasing you, then yes, jump off the cliff. God is merciful. But if
you just don't know what else to do with your life right now, and you
are looking for a change, it really might be irresponsible to jump
off that cliff. You get me? Make your decisions prepared for the
worst, never expect others to help you. And then when they do, just
imagine how much more you will appreciate it.
There's also a little excuse we give ourselves for not contributing
to the love and mercy in the world. We say, oh but when *I* was in a
hard situation, no one came to help me. I've said that to myself
before. But honestly, who cares. :-) If I am now in a position
where I can help someone else, why not? Why not help that person?
Break the cycle of un-helping-ness. Break the cycle of bitter apathy.
If a human is suffering, and we have the power to change that, how
can we make excuses to just do nothing?
Before I share my thoughts, I have to make a request. Comments in the past have sometimes gotten a bit nit-picky. Anyone who gets nit-picky with me nowadays after I've become the "no-nonsense" version of Ruthie is getting ignored or maybe even deleted. You've been warned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Charity~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wanted to talk about the concept of charity. Is it a religious obligation
or an option?
I used to battle with the question of "who DESERVES my kindness and charity". I used to
look at a situation and say, oh but that person got themselves INTO
that situation, they made their bed, now they must lie in it. I
recently had an epiphany. Everyone, everywhere makes mistakes. None
of us is perfect. We all have disabilities and faults. Some of
those are visible, some are hidden. Some of us have addictions, some
of us never learned pro-active ways to approach life, some of us have
personality flaws that turn others off, some of us have actual
physical disabilities, some of us have been widowed or divorced or
raped or conned or oppressed in one form or the other. In ANY
situation, we can always choose to either blame the victim, or simply
to act with the intention of alleviating pain and discomfort.
When Hurricane Katrina (and more recently, Ike) hit the Gulf Coast,
there were some people that might have said- oh well those people who are
stranded and lost everything had the chance to evacuate and chose not
to, or they were stupid enough to buy homes on the coast in a low
lying area so now they made their bed and they must lie in it.
Goodness gracious. Saying comments like that is not only cold-
hearted, it also shows just how much those judgemental people don't
fully understand the whole story. And it's ok. They may NEVER
understand the full story. We never can because each of us only has
limited time and information. As a muslim, I believe that only God
understands the full story. But here on Earth, mankind is his team
of vice-gerants. God is merciful to ALL, regardless of what they did
to get themselves into a situation. How can we, then, say God is
wrong to be merciful to someone who is sleeping on the floor and
basically asking someone else to feed them everyday? Is it wrong to
have mercy on a person in that situation? If I was in that situation
due to some string of unfortunate events, wouldn't I want others to
have mercy on me?? When I see people in a situation I do not want to
be in, I remind myself just how precarious my own life is and how
close I could be to being homeless, or fatally ill, or disabled, or
alone. I do not want that for myself. In fact, it scares me
s**tless. We all make bad, irrational, foolish, or wrong choices now
and again. They seemed like good choices at the time, didn't they.
And we all have lived through the consequences. And we all have very
good reasons for making those very bad choices. And SOMETIMES what
seems on the outside to be a bad or irresponsible choice is ACTUALLY
the best option for the person. We do not know all the details. So
that's why we don't judge.
On the other hand, I also need to comment that we should never *rely*
on other people's mercy. You need to always tie your own camel. You
can't just leap out off a cliff and say, oh but God is merciful so He
will catch me. No, don't be silly. And you also can't blame anyone
when you fall off that cliff and break your legs because no one came
to your rescue. "Where were my muslim sisters?" It just doesn't
work that way. If you are being chased, and come to a cliff and find
it is your only way out and you are prepared to hit the bottom and
break your legs because it is a better option than meeting what is
chasing you, then yes, jump off the cliff. God is merciful. But if
you just don't know what else to do with your life right now, and you
are looking for a change, it really might be irresponsible to jump
off that cliff. You get me? Make your decisions prepared for the
worst, never expect others to help you. And then when they do, just
imagine how much more you will appreciate it.
There's also a little excuse we give ourselves for not contributing
to the love and mercy in the world. We say, oh but when *I* was in a
hard situation, no one came to help me. I've said that to myself
before. But honestly, who cares. :-) If I am now in a position
where I can help someone else, why not? Why not help that person?
Break the cycle of un-helping-ness. Break the cycle of bitter apathy.
If a human is suffering, and we have the power to change that, how
can we make excuses to just do nothing?
posted by Just Ruthie at 10:07 AM
1 Comments:
hi,
in this regard i wanted to share with you a lesson from one of my favorite Religious Science ministers, Rev. Jim Young in Wlimington NC, it's on compassion on the web at http://www.ccrsc.org/audio/2003/compassion.mp3 ... at about the 20 minute mark i think he speaks directly to what to do when we see those charitable opportunities.
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