Lets do what is hard

Lets do what’s hard

Life is full of decisions. What is right and what is wrong. What is easy and what is hard. What will help and what will hurt. How much time do we spend on these decisions? Deciding on a suit or dress could take hours, a car days, and a home weeks to months. Yet a life altering decision for another we might spend scare seconds. Need a tangible, the last time a friend or co-worker asked a personal favor how long did you think before answering? We tell ourselves if it was truly important they would have told us, have we ever considered the fact that even asking in the first place is telling enough? Take a moment from the day and listen, really listen to what someone is asking or saying. If they tend not to prattle on randomly maybe there is a reason they are at this moment. Maybe they have something to say, but simply can not. We owe it to our friends to listen even when they can not talk.

Honor takes a lifetime to learn and yet also a trait one needs to be born with. In some modes of media we idealize honor, courage and integrity, yet in others we show it as idolatry. Demonstrate, go see Jennifer Aniston in “Derailed” a well produced and acted film rival to “The Phone booth”. It personified the absolute worst traits in even the best of people. It puts forth the devil which slumbers in the most kind of individuals. A well made move to depress an eager soul. Contrast to the latest Harry Potter saga, although not without its gloomy and dark moments still embodies the best in people. It believes in repentance, honor and friendship that no amount of evil can suppress. The movie was outstandingly created with increased character development, but in the respect of this argument it embodies the angel inside even the worst of people. We see and read enough evil in newspaper and on television to curl the hair on our toes, can we not take time to create hope in the betterness of people. The belief that honor does exist and in the worst of times may shine through like a beacon of light through the fog of our soul. Let us not sink to the level of anger, revenge, and cheats, let us instead rise to the plateau of integrity, honor and courage.

To which leads me to a final thought for all. Depending who you talk to we are either approaching or are in the midst of the holiday season. A time when charities abound with pleas of generosity for this is their time for hope in the betterness and kindness of all. Too easy it is for us to simply present money to these charities and bid them a find day while we show them our back. Too easy is it for us not to get involved with that self satisfaction of having helped in a manner that took the least effort or dirt. Do not get me wrong, these charities would not exist without the financial generosity of so many, but yet to be part of a community we need to dedicate our time as well. In rural villages around the world the life of one neighbor deeply affects another. From as far away as Africa or Iceland to as close as Racine or Watsonville when a person in a tribe is in trouble all come to help for they thrive or drown together. “When my brother’s house burned down he needed not to ask for a place to stay, for we all provided a shelter before he could speak” I challenge all of us, as I am just as guilty of this, to find some way to touch another in a meaningful manner. Be it ladling soup in a kitchen, or building a house, our time and our skills are the most precious gifts. There are 6,248 estimated homeless in San Francisco out of an estimated 744,000 permanent residents. An estimated 750,000 people are homeless throughout the country. The fearful number however that it was estimated in one of the only officially sanctioned studies in the past twenty years that in 1989 the DOE (department of education) estimated almost 220,000 school age children are homeless and do not attend school. A non government study by the Better Homes Fund partially sponsored by Harvard law in 1999 estimated that number has grown to over 1 million children. A staggering amount and a humbling one when we consider that our monetary gift is enough. I do not know what is the right way to reach out to those who need. I am however reminded of the saying of teaching a man to fish versus handing one to him. In both Judaism and Christianity, charity is actually ranked in ascending order in 8 levels. Many of them deal with how to give money so either the recipient or donator remain anonymous, all of that is left in the rear when the act of preventing someone from needing to request money is brought forth. Let us take this opportunity as we reflect with our family and friends to create ways to reach out to our community and truly embody that we survive and thrive together.

Let us do what is hard for it is the honorable thing to do!