Giving -- or Taking?

This site is not intended to be a forum for my views on anything, only my thoughts on those things which cause me anxiety, and examples of how God has shown me peace. Unfortunately, some of the things which sometime cause me anxiety are events of this country, and its future. This is my topic, my anxiety today.

Within the definition of love that I recognize, love is our giving away of gifts which we have been given by our Creator – and all of our gifts are ultimately from Him. Can it also be love to give away what we have taken? Is Robin Hood someone to look up to? Are the majority of our neighbors really like the evil king, who we must steal from so we can give to the poor? Is this story of Sherwood Forest fiction, or a gospel?

As we have seen in recent years, in America we can try to give everyone a house. We can give everyone free education. And now we plan to give everyone free medical care. We can give these things to everyone, and it appears we will. We are told all have “a right” to these things, and certainly to the ones receiving them, these seem good things. But where did these things we give away come from, and by doing these actions, are we really showing love for our neighbor? They seem to be good things for him, are they? These seem to be good ends; does it matter how we get there? I think some examples might help clarify our thinking on those questions.

Let’s start with our intentions. The Extreme Makeover Home Edition television show is an example of Americans giving houses for free to needy people. We cry at the beauty and generosity of it. It all seems most wonderful. Our intentions seem pure. But the show’s producers are now finding, however, that many recipients are being forced to give up their “free” homes – they could not afford to maintain them, or in some cases lacked the wisdom to be financially responsible with them – immediately taking out huge mortgages (“free” loans) which they could not pay back. We have helped other Americans to do similar things, buying homes when banks offered them “free” loans (no money down), but then finding the people could not afford to pay the loans back. They’ve found out the gifts and loans weren’t really free. We intended to do a good thing, but now many fingers are pointing around in all directions – who did this evil thing, to now take these homes away from these nice people? Try as you might to point elsewhere, but in the end WE did this “evil” thing Americans, we did.

We heard the cry of the poor, and we wanted to help them; it seemed a good thing. We forgot, however, (or no longer believed) that “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” We wanted to act as gods, doling out generosity. We forgot the adage: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach him to fish and he eats every day.” We thought we could keep giving and giving, taking from some and giving to others, endlessly. In our desire to love our neighbor, we forgot what love really is. It is not love to give a 5-year old a car, nor a poor man a huge house, especially one taken from someone else. This is only our vanity, our desire to be praised for our good intentions. Given everything, and never given the blessing of earning it creates nothing but greed in a man, and a desire for even more. It’s only when we are wanting that we are satisfied with less, and that we are thankful for what we have been given. We may have had good desires, but we did no good thing.

Look at others who have been given riches, look at Hollywood idols and millionaires. Do you see great happiness there? No, I submit to you that far from our ideas of creating happiness when we give things freely, instead we create sadness. How did we get to this point, where what we value seems so valueless? I think we’ve touched on it here, in this blog, many times in the past. We got lost in the mirror, when we totally looked to ourselves to figure out happiness. When we looked to ourselves, we saw our own greed, envy, pride, and all the other capital sins. Things WE want, and to the degree we can, we wanted to give them to everyone. We thought we were doing a good thing, but we were projecting our sins onto others – and this will not result in their happiness, any more than ours.

In looking to ourselves for answers, we forgot to look to God. We forgot the commandments to love. Love isn’t seeing our vices in the mirror and wanting others to want the same thing. Love is not teaching others how to take, but how to give. Love IS giving, like the story of teaching to fish, giving what is truly needed by our neighbor, needed to make their lives, lives of value, and teaching them to make a difference in the world by reaching out to help their neighbor help others. Love is not taking and giving, it is giving from what we have been given.

And what about the needs of the truly poor? I read about them tonight:
For He shall save the poor when they cry
and the needy who are helpless.
He will have pity on the weak
and save the lives of the poor.
From oppression He will rescue their lives.
Psalm 72 12:14

First note, HE will save them, not us. Second take note of who he will save: “the needy who are helpless” and “the weak” and those oppressed. Is that who we are saving with all the gifts we wish to bestow on America’s people? And what of those who pay for “our” generosity, the tremendous costs today and in the future? There is a word for those whom we commit to do the work we consider essential, who MUST help us do “good” works, whether they want to or not. The word is slavery. And despite what their masters may say to them, to a slave, slavery is NOT “for your own good.” It is stealing what God has given them.

God did not place us here on earth to accomplish His good will by making others do it. He did not create us to be masters; he created us to be servants. How easily we have confused and justified ourselves. We sometimes believe that by accomplishing a good end we are doing a good thing, but even God did not dictate good ends for us. He would not be so arrogant! He gave us freedom to choose. In America today so many people think that they, and only they, know the truth of God’s will. It seems sad to me, however, that they so rarely ask his opinion on the matter, nor look to his example.

He did not make man for other men to take care of him. This is not the love he spoke of when he said “Love your neighbor.” Jesus came and died on the cross to show us that life will have pains, but that Glory can come out of them. He opened the gates of heaven; he did not push man through, to try to force him to have happiness.

Neither should we.

One final thought: As I finished writing these words, my admonishments to others for not hearing the Lord (as if only I did), I read this in my Morning Prayers:
Teach us, good Lord, to serve the need of others,
Help us to give and not to count the cost.
Unite us for we are all born as brothers;
Defeat our Babel with your Pentecost.

In all humility, what more words need be said. Amen.

Lord, on this day which we celebrate the birthday of your servant, Benedict XVI, have mercy on him and be with him, as he carries his cross.