What is our greatest gift?
What is the one indispensable ingredient of life?
What is the most potent force in the universe?
Where can we find the solution to our problems?
Where can we find the solution to the problems of the world?
There is only one answer.
The answer is Love.
“I don’t do these things because I can,” Tommie Lee said, “I do them because I want to.”
Mark it, write it down, commit it to action; I remember thinking when I heard Tommie Lee’s response.
It was an indignant response to an impertinent question.
“How is it,” I asked, “that you are taking care of your community when most people would think the community should be taking are of you?”
It was a question I had to ask. You see, Tommie Lee was blind and black and lived in part of Mississippi so poor they used recycled tin cans as water glasses.
Still, he found a way to provide food, clothing, and medical assistance to those around him through a charity he started the year he lost his sight. How was that possible?
Tommie Lee felt and I have come to believe that no matter who you are, now matter what the circumstances of your birth there is always something you can do, some way to help.
At the moment, the Heart of America is responding to the devastation created by Hurricane Sandy – just as we responded to the need in the Gulf following Hurricane Katrina and the need in New York after 9/11.
There are lots of reasons to pass: preexisting commitments, staff stretch to the limits with library makeover projects, no certainty we can find support, not to mention inconvenient timing – it’s comes as we approach the holidays after all and all that entails.
There is only one reason to proceed. We want to.
Moment by moment, day after day, life questions us. We are defined by what we do and how we respond.
The Heart of America has never been more visible than it was on September 11, 2001. On that day and in the aftermath of the terrorists’ acts in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, we answered their worst with our best. America responded to that tragedy with thousands of acts of kindness and compassion.
The isolated acts of a dozen men driven by hate were overwhelmed by an outpouring of love and compassion. In the days that followed, 70 percent of all Americans made a contribution to the relief effort, a response unprecedented in world history. More than 60 percent of all Americans made a financial contribution to the relief effort. Many others volunteered time, gave blood, opened their homes, and contributed household items and necessary supplies. Continue reading
Every bride is beautiful. Every expectant mother has a glow. These common moments reveal the extraordinary nature of our being.
Human nature is so constructed that it is easier to see our faults and fasten on our failings. It takes faith to see beyond our frailty.
But in our hearts we know we are powerful beyond measure. We know we will always be loved. We know we were born to love in return.
In the words of Nelson Mandela, “We were born to manifest the glory of God in us.”
In each of us, God is expressed in infinite variety. Like the rivers that lead to the sea, God is revealed in a way that is at once common to humanity and unique to each individual.
Rachel Rossow has twenty-one children and more foster children than I can count. Though she would not acknowledge a distinction between the children of her body and the children of her heart, society would say that nineteen of her children were adopted.
All of the children Rachel chose to bring home were born with severe mental or physical handicaps. Some are mentally gifted while physically challenged. Others are physically gifted while being mentally challenged. And some are seriously challenged in all aspects of life.
When I came to know Rachel, I couldn’t help wondering how she met the enormous challenge presented by children with such diverse abilities. Trying to be as artful as possible, I asked her what she taught them. Rachel’s response went directly to the heart of the question I meant to ask, but could not articulate.
“I teach them all the same thing,” she said. “First, you have to get to know yourself. Then you have to learn to love yourself. And then, you have to learn to forget yourself in service to others.”
Knowing yourself, she explained, means understanding where you come from, who you really are, what gifts you were given, and what gifts you have to give. Loving yourself has nothing to do with narcissism and is the antithesis of ego. Loving yourself means embracing yourself as you are rather than as you wish to be. It comes from the understanding that our weaknesses are as much a part of our uniqueness as our strengths.
But to be bestowed with meaning, life must transcend itself. We have not started living until we can rise above the narrow confines of our personal concerns to the broader concerns of society. Ironically, it is when we forget ourselves that we do things for which we are most likely to be remembered.
