To live in a different kind of way requires adaptation. What do you mean, right?Are we searching for a different kind of kingdom with a different kind of king? Or are we happy with the world as it now is?
What must be stripped away? This question has been asked before, and I don't endeavor to answer that question for you; only to say this: all the normal trees in the forest are different than this tree. The other ones would die up there. The tree's also not very big, but it's anchored well.
I've lately been freed from some naivete regarding helping people. It doesn't make you feel better for long, and sometimes it makes you feel worse and hopeless, like how's this ever going to change? I wish I knew. My buddy Tim has a great signature at the ends of his e-mails. It goes like this (and given my options I think I prefer this to luxurious self-indulgence):
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." --Mother Theresa
"We can do no great things, so let us fail with great enthusiasm!" --Tim Miller
1 comment:
Helping people. Is it for me or for them?
Aubrey has a renewed sense of hopelessness many times with her job working as a counselor in the city. Many of the people she works with are unemployed due to mental disability, which furthers their disability, and then they come to her to be assuaged for an hour and then go home to repeat the same behavior. There are some people who want to change and she's seen that. But more often than not...no change.
I'm not sure where that leaves us. It may say something about how we help others. Perhaps our methods of help aren't holistic enough. Perhaps were only supposed to help those who are asking for it. Perhaps helping involves moving into the neighborhood.
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