September 26, 2013
Carrying One Another’s Burdens
Recently there was a heartwarming story of a
homeless man who was honored for turning in a satchel he found which was filled
with almost $45,000 in cash and travelers checks. The man said that even if he
were desperate, he wouldn’t have taken any of the money. The honoree lost his
job of 13 years because of health reasons. He now lives a shelter, gets food
stamps, and panhandles to make money for laundry and other necessities.
Reportedly he said he, “…doesn’t want to
be a burden to his relatives and that people at the shelter help him. He said
God has always looked after him.” I appreciate the man’s moral compass
which points to God and returning what belongs to another. However, I find it
bewildering when people say they don’t want to burden their relatives, yet they
have no problem burdening the taxpayer. I suppose it is easier for a panhandler
to say he doesn’t want to burden his relatives than it is to say, ‘my relatives
will no longer give me support’.
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2 comments:
Gail;
-----I cherish the feeling I would get when I opened a pack of new notebook paper. Every page was so clean and fresh and just like all the rest. I liked scrutinizing them carefully to find the minor differences. And I liked knowing that all those pages would soon become very differently filled with writings and algebra and doodles and such, yet they would remain generally the same by their part in my schoolwork.
-----And we are probably a bit worn by the old analogy of being born a blank page for life’s experiences to fill. Well, I would like to stand that analogy up a bit straighter, push its shoulders back, brush the dander off them, tug a few wrinkles out of its clothing, and send it to you with hopefully a piece of insight. Cultural effects make us similar as my filled papers were generally the same, though we differ in particular.
-----But we are a being changed culture. Yes, you do still hear praised the parent making room at home for the ailing child, or the child for the parent, sibling, cousin, etc. But the expectation is evermore tending towards government assistance. Let’s say the pages are becoming less filled by printing and more with cursive, while the words alike read, “Thou shalt help.” This happenins by repetitive messages and imageries social engineers place before us as Jacob placed striped sticks before Laban’s herds where they watered.
-----What character was in the old print! Individual letters worked together unto words like individual pages made chapters. Yet each letter and page remained individually bearing its own task. But the cursive! That endless running together of every letter into one squiggly line! It makes you think all is one as if pages should be stitched side to side and scrolled around the rod. This hideous concept that “individual” is good for nothing more than being another link between the same on the left and the other at the right for serving unity to the powerful! It is not God’s way. The only character it requires is a strength of each paper for bearing the foreign stitches forcing it to its tiny place.
-----This is what collectivism desires. Mindless pages of meaningless squiggles knowing nothing more than keeping within their own given place. Each being there only to generate provision for turning over to the rod’s distribution. We who break free of stitches can see that distribution going first and most to those pages empowering the rod. The rest is a sprinkled trace of hope onto changed papers, keeping them in line wishing for enough.
-----Mom and Dad taking care of daughter and grandchild or sibling or cousin or uncle or even friend are healthy and strong and wise without need of the rod. They are able to stand alone in the expression of, “Thou shalt help.” This is God’s way. It was the American way. They need not be wound around a rod, nor beaten with it. And the strength of that culture is in the general sameness of its multitudes of pages to alike stand responsibly independent in their differences. Then, when the horrible page ripper threatens society, they will not all go one linked to another into its throat like an unraveling roll of toilet paper down a flushing commode. No! Their society made of individually complete pages will stand in spite of the page ripper’s efforts. For the page ripper is overwhelmed by the need to catch and defeat them one at a time.
-----But look at us now. We are falling all over ourselves to stitch everyone into a continuous roll of cursively scribbled babble. Today this persuasion continues by innocuous, little, striped sticks saying, “I don’t want to be a burden to my family.” But when the tipping point is reached, I assure you, the striped sticks are replaced by the rod for beating every last page into stitches before it wraps them all around itself as one meaningless lump of ignorant, helpless, subdued poverty.
-----You're right, Gail! Keep up the good inspiration.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
By the way, "If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." (I Tim 5:8) Don't let the collectivist Nikolaitans (Greek: niko - conquer; laios - people) fool us. Paul said if any one does not provide for his own RELATIVES and especially FAMILY. He said nothing about collectively providing for everyone else’s. Remember, this is the same Paul who told the Thessalonians that if someone would not work, he should not eat. Paul was no collectivist Nikolaitan.
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