March 24, 2011
Moral Dilemma
A letter to Dear Abby signed ‘Feeling Guilty’ described her problem with organizations soliciting donations. A few times a year she would get mailing address labels, calendars or note pads with a preprinted return envelope asking for contributions. She didn’t want the items and couldn’t afford to contribute to all the solicitations, but she didn’t feel right about throwing them in the trash either. Guilty said, “I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles with this moral dilemma.” Not to be critical, but I’m having a hard time seeing this as a moral issue, much less as a dilemma.
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Gail;
-----”Whatever you do, just follow your heart,” is an often heard message which really miffs me. A lot of murders and thefts, and cheating, and other sorts of misbehavior happen by people just following their hearts, because the human heart can be as full of evil as it can be of good. Laying that case aside, yet drawing from its point that the heart is not innately wise, even the good heart can become miserably confused. In my young adulthood I struggled for quite some time trying to decide whether I should be principally controlled by my emotions or my intellect. Emotions can go from blue to red in an instant, and intellect never seems to have quite enough reliable information for the drawing of a sound conclusion. I discovered how deeply lost one can get inside his own self. I relate to ‘Feeling Guilty’s’ dilemma.
-----But I agree with you. It should not be a dilemma. Yet I see in it a moral issue having a reasonably clear solution. We are called to love everyone, no exceptions. John asks how you can say you love your brother whom you see in need while not helping him with the excess you have. Just because they are in want some twenty-five thousand miles around the other side of the world does not mean the preciousness of their being human ceases. It only means their lack of proximity limits our ability to fully see their need. ‘Feeling Guilty’s’ mind supplies what the distance eliminates. She knows the need no matter where the place.
-----However, this turns into her dilemma because her same perceptiveness has not discovered a relationship between her pittance of excess and the world’s billions of needy. The moment you have given beyond your excess to relieve another’s burden, then you yourself have become a burden to another by your own created neediness. This is a principle Paul reminded the Corinthians. We are limited. We can not be like Christ in this regard. And even though He could, He did not raise His hands one day and heal every ailment of every living creature. As far as that goes, He could even do that right now, if He chose. But I guess He doesn’t choose. But He did heal those in His immediate proximity who approached Him for help (I think there is even one instance where He approached a blind man.) The point is that generosity has to seek sensibility before it has utility. (Gag.) In as much as the mind is a part of the heart, I suppose that is following your heart. But I like, “Think it through.”
-----The sensibility Christ made of His generosity with His true excess was much more than rice and Raman. For, you see, He had an unlimited excess of righteousness. He threw open the door to that excess, and now every human that has ever lived, regardless of proximity in place or time, has been invited to come and get however much of it they can.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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