God’s work must truly be our own- John F. Kennedy
God has no other hands but ours to use. It’s up to us to ease the suffering and chaos that we see in the world. A Sufi teaching story goes, a spiritual seeker prayed outdoors daily. As he prayed, he noticed a constant stream of beggars, crippled people in mind body and spirit pass him constantly. He looked at the mass of human suffering and lifted his voice to God and cried, “Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and do nothing about it?” After a long silence, the voice of God said, “I did do something, I made you.”
We often feel we don’t have the time nor energy to give more after a long day at the office, waiting tables or loading trucks. Whatever one does to put food on the table, it is taxing on us physically and mentally. How can anyone do even just one more thing in the day to add to an already busy schedule? Seems daunting and impossible, yet we all know people who do that very thing on a weekly, monthly and even on a daily basis. It seems that they have something extra that the rest of us lack. We have the good intention perhaps, of doing a little extra civic duty for the community. We all know how helping others helps ourselves, giving during one’s time of need often gives much more in return when we need it most. That is the key when we feel directed to do such things, God takes our hand and shows us the way, just when we need it the most.
Who are these special people in our society, the givers of the world? Doesn’t it seem we see the same names over and over on different rosters around the community, they belong to the Rotary, the Kiwanis and then you see their names on the United Way fundraiser event or the Band Boosters fundraising event. How is it just a few people do so much for t he community? They do as much in a month than the non-volunteers amongst the rest of us do in a year, or even in a lifetime.
Do they have a special extra dose of the altruistic gene? They seem so far apart from us that we feel we can’t even begin to believe we can be like them. So far removed from our lives of every day existence that we can’t imagine serving soup to the homeless at Thanksgiving It is easier to understand why people help people who can’t help themselves, maybe children in a hospital or someone with a profound illness. So then there’s the puzzle of how and why some people volunteer at a women’s shelter or a halfway house, even in the face of the reality of humanity brutalizing one another at such places.
These are very special people who hold our society together, they keep the t he bursting seams of a chaotic system intact when it appears all else is useless. These selfless souls are there to make sure all is well and life continues for those who lost everything during a hurricane, flood or fire. So many disasters have occurred lately that we’ve taken it for granted that the Red Cross volunteers will be there, or the United Way folks will have what we need. Some folks do have a career in helping professions; others do this in addition to their paying jobs. There really is no difference between paid and unpaid altruism, it’s the same process that draws a person to helping others. This is the direct hand of God when one is touched by the services of an Altruistic person.
