Do we care about the poor? Will money rid us of poverty? Can we improve the social conditions of people? Should the rich give? How do we measure the success of charity?
So, Warren Buffet's son, Peter, wrote this.
I say this,
Jesus said that we would ALWAYS have the poor with us...so we will never get rid of poverty...EVER. But, Jesus also gave us two great commandments, to love God with all of ourselves and to love others as ourselves.
So, to me the real key isn't money, but LOVE - which is exactly what people are about. You know the educational system will have everyone believe that all people getting a college education is the key, not true. You and I both know that we enjoy the guy picking up our garbage. We want him to like his job and know we value him, but we know that he doesn't need a college education to pick up our garbage.
Some people are leaders, some followers. Some people are rich, some poor. Some people are pretty, some ugly. But, the key isn't measuring success with money, but with love and reaching out. So, if we are using our money to do that, good for us...but mostly we need to use the one resource we all have...time. I don't think you can love people with just money. You can't solve a problem, change a life with only money.
Research has proven that if you give a poor man money, the quality of his life doesn't improve. Have you ever wondered why people that win the lottery say it was the worse thing to happen to them?
Money by itself, a check carefully written, a dollar given does not change lives without love and time. Giving a poor man money and not teaching him how to spend it, not teaching him about the path to contentment, not teaching him about the greatest love, leaves him empty...and it always will.
Jane Addams said, "What after all has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities and courage to advocate them."
2 comments:
Some someone lent me a book, and I read a passage last night which made me stop and think, "Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient's soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know."
I think you're right. Sometimes our definition of poor in a socioeconomic sense does not necessarily lend itself to poverty in spirit and when we're always throwing money at something we can miss the point.
Yes and yes. I love that quote...let us give money to those we don't have to see or touch...let's not get our hands dirty...let's let them be invisible...and let's feel self-important and charitable...interesting that C.S. Lewis said that all those years ago...and, what after all, have we learned.
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