Reaching Out to Folks in Need

There are many ways of reaching out to people who are in need.

You can tailor your giving to your abilities and resources and still make a positive difference in the lives of those less fortunate. A quick look on the internet will bring up tons of organizations ready to accept your donations.

~ of money, resources, or time ~

YOU CAN: 

Give Money, Give Clothing,

Give A Bag Of Groceries, 

Give Toys,

Volunteer At A Shelter, 

Volunteer At A Soup Kitchen, 

Volunteer Your Professional Talents, 

Volunteer Your Hobbies, 

Volunteer For Follow-Up Programs, 

Volunteer At Battered Women's Shelters, 

Tutor Homeless Children, 

Take Homeless Children On Trips, 

Employ the Homeless, 

Help The Homeless Apply For Aid, 

Join Habitat For Humanity, 

Write To Corporations, 

Contact Your Government Representatives (Find your state representatives), 

Push For State Homelessness Prevention Programs, . . . 

- from the Just Give Guide.
They have much more information there, check it out.

Photo Source.

This Song ALWAYS Brings Tears to My Eyes

That's how I know life hasn't beaten the humanity out of me.

We have debts and struggle, just like everyone else. But we are acutely aware of how easily things could be much worse. 

The number of folks on corners with signs has exploded in the past few years; some asking for work, some looking to get someplace else, some just trying to stay alive. 

And if you look into their eyes you will see profound sadness mixed with a kind of surprise. They never expected to be here asking you for a hand out.

On payday I will be making a donation to help someone else.

Please join me.

We don't have much, but even a few dollars can make a difference.

(There are links to several charities below the video

& on the side bar at left)

Give whatever and wherever you feel comfortable, but please give. 

Local organizations that aid the homeles and those living in poverty are always in need of volunteers. Your time is a valuable gift, too.

This was originally written during the depression (1931) by Yip Harburg,
who was later blacklisted during the McCathy era.

LINKS (Click on the logo to go to the site):

Stop Family Violence

All State funding was cut for programs to prevent family violence

and help victims in California.

DonorsChoose

Connecting you to classrooms in need

It won't cost you a thing

You click and the advertisers donate

Red Cross

Direct Link for Red Cross Donations

I've Often Heard that Life is Like a Game of Chess; but the Longer I Live, the More I Realize that It's Much More Like a Game of Backgammon . . . .

You Can Make All the Right Moves and Still Be Wiped Out By  Roll of the Dice.

from:

Morality Without “Free Will”

Clearly, we need to build prisons for people who are intent upon harming others. But if we could incarcerate earthquakes and hurricanes for their crimes, we would build prisons for them as well.

The men and women on death row have some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad ideas, and bad luck—which of these quantities, exactly, were they responsible for? No human being stands as author to his own genes or his upbringing, and yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character throughout life.

Our system of justice should reflect our understanding that each of us could have been dealt a very different hand in life. In fact, it seems immoral not to recognize just how much luck is involved in morality itself.

DEVASTATION

Over 200 are dead after over a hundred separate tornadoes left a trail of destruction across five states in the American South. The nation appears headed for a record number of tornadoes this year. -- Lane Turner.

Faye Hyde sits on a mattress in what was her yard as she comforts her granddaughter Sierra Goldsmith, 2, in Concord, Ala. April 27, after their home was destroyed. 

 

A wave of tornado-spawning storms strafed the South on Wednesday, splintering buildings across hard-hit Alabama and killing nearly 200 people in four states. At least 58 people died in Alabama alone. (Jeff Roberts/The Birmingham News/AP)

 

The Big Picture documents the destruction down south.

TO DONATE: I have provided links here for

THE RED CROSS, 

and

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS.

The permanent links for both are in my sidebar.

A VOICE of COMPASSION on the BUDGET ISSUE

"The moral measure of this budget debate is not which party wins or which powerful interests prevail, but rather how those who are jobless, hungry, homeless or poor are treated. Their voices are too often missing in these debates, but they have the most compelling moral claim on our consciences and our common resources. 

A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons. It requires shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs fairly."

- April 13 statement, 

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Ash Wednesday. . .

a day of repentance, 

a day to ask forgiveness for giving in to failings: 

anger, judgment, selfishness. 

Introspection, self-awareness and taking stock of ones self in relation to the world is important to living a good life. And our treatment of others, directly and indirectly, is a mirror of our interior life.

"There is no deeper pathos in the spiritual life of man than the cruelty of righteous people. If any one idea dominates the teachings of Jesus, it is his opposition to the self-righteousness of the righteous. The parable spoken unto "certain which trusted in themselves that they are righteous, and despised others" made the most morally disciplined group of the day, his Pharisees, the object of his criticism. In fact, Jesus seems to have been in perpetual conflict with the good people of his day and ironically justified his consorting with the bad people by the remark that not those who are whole, but those who are sick, are in need of a physician...

The criticism which Jesus levelled at good people had both a religious and moral connotation. They were proud in the sight of God and they were merciless and unforgiving to their fellow-men. Their pride is the basis of their lack of mercy. . .

Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not good, who feel themselves in need of a divine mercy, who live in a dimension deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel themselves as well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy God and know that the difference between the good man and the bad man are insignificant in his sight . . ." - Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, ch. 8, "Love as Forgiveness."

Before Hemingway, there was John Donne:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

(For Whom The Bell Tolls, Originally posted October 17, 2009)
(Painting, “Ash Wednesday” by Carl Spitzweg)