[lit-ideas] Re: New Year's Resolutions
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 00:01:02 -0500
Marlena, my lighting a candle, my lighting a bonfire, isn't going to change the
world one bit. Even on this list when the *idea* that something should be done
differently is presented, look at the reception it gets. In addition to which,
I'm not out to change the world. The repeated use of the word light in your
posts is leading me to conclude that perhaps my comment that "Humans are so
proud to be a species that lights an occasional candle in the darkness, and it
never occurs to them that maybe if they'd stop creating the darkness they could
have a lot more light" is somehow generating this energy. Well, humans aren't
about to stop creating darkness, and they can create it without my help and
without my rescuing them from it so they can go back and do it all over again.
Humans don't curse the darkness, they embrace it, they love it, and there's not
a thing I can do about it.
----- Original Message -----
From:
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 12/29/2005 11:45:14 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: New Year's Resolutions
In a message dated 12/29/2005 10:11:38 P.M. Central Standard Time,
aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
I can't even stand going to the supermarket or the Walmart for that reason,
because it really hurts me to see the way people treat their kids. Sometimes I
can't wait to get out of the stores. I think volunteering is wonderful but I'd
rather read a book or do something like that. I appre ciate the suggestions,
they are excellent. But for now I think they wouldn't work for me
Dear Irene/Andy,
Thanks for being candid.
However--if YOU are not able to handle volunteering or making the world a
better place--maybe that is why you are not able to understand that there are
people who ARE doing what they can to do so?
I, absolutely, understand how hard it is when one gets 'tipped over the edge'
(as I call it).
What I do NOT understand is how someone who gets tipped over the edge (and that
is, I think, what is happening to you...) can do so--can see the hurting
ones--and not do anything to make it better.
If you didn't have the means, then I would say--just go up and 'be there'.
THAT, just by itself, is often enough to give someone the courage/the hope/the
help that they need to keep on walking to the other side.
THAT would be empathy/sympathy (and whether you are feeling what they feel
because you've been there [empathy] or because you are feeling what they feel
because you are able to imagine what they are going through [sympathy]--well,
either one ought to have the outcome of motivating one to DO something to make
the 'whatever the pain is' better.)
So--kids and dogs are not your passion? Then--what about being a hospice
volunteer? They ALL need help. Or, even be in touch with some of the
'home-health' people--the ones who are in touch with the homebound who need
someone to either go to the library to pick up books for them, to pick up
groceries/prescriptions/or just to WATCH the homebound person so that the
caregiver can get out and get her hair done or see some friends or go to a
friend's house for a quick and needed break.
It sounds like you want the world to be a better place but you don't want to
have any part in making it happen? You may be cross at the people who are
doing the mean stuff--I, also, get cross at them. But, truthfully--my crossness
is even more at the hypocrisy of those who complain AND HAVE THE MEANS to make
changes for the better for SOME part of their corner of the world--and who
hideout instead.
The light is shining, Irene/Andy. It's shining on YOU, asking YOU to do
SOMETHING GOOD for humanity...not just hide in a cocoon because YOU hurt when
you see someone else hurting! WHO is going to make that hurt person better???
If YOU see the pain--it is up to YOU to touch shoulders--even if it simply to
say you actually CARE. Sometimes knowing someone else cares--it is all that
someone can do.
Oh! If you were here and interested in helping--I'd have you go wandering
with me tomorrow. At the end of the blood drive tonight--the head guy was
going to be tossing out the poinsettas that were at the location as they were
donated and had been given as 'thank yous' to people who gave blood. I had
interacted with two single moms (one who had, on the way to work during a snow
storm right before Christmas, wrecked her car--) and one was a bit more
positive about the coming year--and the other! oh, she was/is still just
hurting. Yes--I know what it is like to just want to gather and comfort a
hurting one--she's on my lengthy list of calling for assistance in that
electrical energy way to the Universe thing that I do...
and, so tomorrow--it's a little thing but will be sweet--I can give her a
poinsetta! And, I have about seven others to give away to people as I think of
who might need to have a bit of color and cheer in life. I'd have you go with
me--I'd make you go into a store and actively LOOK for a hurting lost one--and
then we'd cheer her up!!
YOU could do that. It wouldn't take much--believe me. When you go to the
supermarket and you think you see/hear a hurting one--DO SOMETHING.
So, I'm continuing with the list of ideas for you, Irene/Andy--until you begin
to walk in that Empathy that you seek--until YOU walk in that Light which is
calling you.
Send waves of love and energy and hope to those who are hurting. They DO need
it--and they especially need to know you CARE...
but, you are right--little light shines when you hole up and whimper. NO ONE
gets helped then!! If you see or hear the need--YOUR obligation as a person, a
caring person especially, is to DO SOMETHING.
And, you are NOT alone when you do that!!! and-- come back and share when you
do!
Please. You can. You MUST. The world--your world--your corner of the
world--needs you.
Use those resources you have. Share them. Share yourself! (I won't add the
sidenote of how you are then otherwise the same as those who also do not share
on a global way...)
As I memorized from my Lines to Live By book when I was fifteen:
It's not what you'd do with riches
Should riches ever be your lot.
But what are doing at present
With the $1.50 you've got?
You have--you are. You can give, you can share. Be AND do. Be that change
you long to see in the world. BE that example!
Do what you can with what you have. It's more than you think--and you WILL
help those you run from! Don't run. They need you--and you CAN do this!
I'm with you. Walk with me...
Best,
Marlena in Missouri
waiting for Irene's light to shine...
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