A growing number of Americans are going hungry or eating less, due to the economy, and you'd be surprised at how many people I know—(including Obama-voting Dems as well as Republicans)-- who actually think that someone else's hunger is not of concern to all of us.
The people I hear saying "not my problem" or "let them help themselves" are often the same people who sign petitions for world peace, unite for social justice causes, wish for a greener planet, and seem to think that ONE.ORG means ME.ORG.
They fill their carts with groceries, eat out , take vacations, buy beautiful clothes, have funds tucked away, and yet claim that they have too little to give to others. They tell themselves they are stretched to the limit by simply taking care of themselves and their families.
Unless you have nothing, you do have something to give.
Luckily, there are millions people who ARE ready to share.
Ready to open their heart, go beyond their little circle of friends and family to share what they've got: money, time or food.
They're ready! They are sooo ready!
But they're waiting.
There are a lot of waiters out there.
If you are a waiter, you're waiting for the perfect opportunity....some day!
Or you're waiting until you can give more than five dollars or more than a box of mac and cheese or more than one hour to your local food pantry.
Well, forget it—those dollars and hours and mac and cheese boxes add up!
Everyone always uses that oxygen on an airplane metaphor—take care of yourself first or you will both be dead.
The truth is, that back here on earth, it raises you up to
be part of a community, to think in terms of us, to contribute as well as consume, in a balanced and thoughtful way.
From my own experience, if I kept waiting until I was "ready to stand on my own two feet," I would never have experienced the joy of expanding my love from self to world. True, there are many who are truly kept by circumstance from giving more at this moment, but there are many more of us who could drop our excuses and do something right now.
Watch the first episode of Hudson Valley WOW TV to catch a glimpse of Helping Hands in Phoenicia, a privately run food distribution organization that runs out of the M.F. Whitney Firehouse, Route 214 Phoenicia, on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. They provide fresh and canned food and local baked goods to mroe than 600 people a month.
The first episode of HV WOW TV is about THANKSGIVING!
Stay tuned to this spot for more on food pantries and more on the first HV WOW TV episode!
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1 comment:
Dakota, thank you for this post. (I would say thanks for the food for thought, but everyone would groan.) Your words reminded me of that famous quote by the English poet, John Donne: "All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
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