It is late, or early, and I am getting ready to go to bed but I just felt like writing a blog. Today at about 5 oclock my roomate and myself decided to go help search for Camille Cleverly. We went to a neighborhood just south of Seven Peaks and knocked on some doors and asked the residents if they had seen any strange behavior from their neighbors and if they would search their property for anything out of the ordinary. Most people were very willing and sympathetic to the situation. What a terrible situation? It is getting to the point that one can only start to assume the worst. As I was knocking on doors my mind and heart turned to Camille's mother and what she must be feeling right now. I can not imagine. It got to the point where I felt like we must do anything and everything we can to help her.
However, after about 2 hours of knocking on doors and searching through a suspicious field I found myself battling inside of my head. One part of me felt like "I have done my part, I want to get back to what I was doing." The other half of my brain was asking the deep and profound question, "what exactly is my part here?" Am I done when I am satisfied? Is this over when she is found? Or when the abductor is found and punished? When is my part done? Obviously, there is a limit to what I can add in aiding Camille. Can I or should I ever be satisfied with what I've done? Especially when the problem continues to exist.
When does someone else's problem become mine? There is obviously not a right answer to that question. When is my part done? Or should it ever be done? I don't know. There are so many problems and people that are needy. No one person could possibly take responsibility for all of it. The main issue for most of us would be time and awareness. Often, more than we think, those who need something that we could provide are standing right in front of us and we don't even know it.
I want to solve the world's problems. I want to take suffering away. I want people to laugh instead of cry, I want there to be educated and self motivated individuals in place of demoralized poverty stricken homeless men and women. I wish I could take it all away. What is my part?
I stand in awe of Jesus Christ. He did suffer all the bad and pain the world can dish out. He understands the feelings that of mother with a daughter that is missing. He know the thoughts of the seemingly thoughtless homeless man. He feels the pain of the lonely widow, the devistated mother, the angry man. All of this weighed and continues to weigh on his heart and mind. Why doesn't he stop it? Why not just heal the wounded heart? There must be some kind of purpose behind the suffering. There must be a reason for the crying. I simply just can't understand what it is. But perhaps that is my part. Faith in Jesus Christ. Trust in the His atonement and His teachings. There is a path to freedom from sin. There is an oasis of peace right in the middle of the desert of pain, sin, and heartache. I believe in the promises of Jesus Christ. I believe in the resurrection. I believe in the covenants I have made with him and I believe that He can deliver fully the blessing He has promised. I suppose that is my part, faith in every footstep. What else is there to do?
3 comments:
thank you. you got me thinking.
Enjoyed your post, Addie.
Your question has no easy answer--what is my duty to others? When does it start and when does it end?
There are endless extrapolations of this question: personal, professional, church, and on a grander scale of societal and national and global events.
It is easy to become overwhelmed and become paralyzed. Or easy to overextend yourself early and then burn out quickly.
What are your limits? Certainly, there are physical limits. As applied directly to your question of searching for a missing student, well, you can only walk so far and knock on so many doors and stay awake so long before your have to eat, sleep, rest, or talk to a man about a horse, etc.
There are similar mental / emotional limits as well. You can't pour your bleeding heart into every worthy cause infinitely . . . or soon you will become embittered and disillusioned and spent. And of course, your own more self-centered interests always loom in the foreground of your life: your job, your education, your relationships, your sense of worth . . .
I suppose that only Christ provided an example of perfect selflessness . . . but even he had to eat and sleep and rest.
I would say, simplistically, that you can only do what you can do. Who knows that limit? Only you do. How will you know when you've exceeded that limit? Only you will know.
You'll face this same dilemma countless times throughout your life. Sometimes when you want to say yes, you'll have to say no. And sometimes when you'll feel like saying no, you'll realize that you have to say yes.
I have formed a mental image to help me answer the question. My reservoir of compassion, I call it. When there's water in the reservoir, I've got love to spare. But often it gets sucked dry, and then I've got to take some time (say no) to let the stream fill it up again.
I'll tell you one thing . . . residency sucked my reservoir dry as a bone. But it seems to replenish much more rapidly these days.
The challenge is to not be overly selfish and let the tank overflow and the water go to waste.
Here is a favorite Robert Frost poem that deals with this very issue, through the story of a man who answers the door on his honeymoon night to find a homeless stranger asking for shelter. What is his duty? Enjoy . . .
"Love And A Question"
A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.
The bridegroom came forth into the porch
With, 'Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the night to be,
Stranger, you and I.'
The woodbine leaves littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;
'Stranger, I wish I knew.'
Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart's desire.
The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her heart in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.
The bridegroom thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;
But whether or not a man was asked
To mar the love of two
By harboring woe in the bridal house,
The bridegroom wished he knew.
I've been giving this some thought and have come up with this: our part is to do our best to overcome the natural man. Overcome our natural desires to be selfish - with our time, means, talents. We naturally gravitate toward the selfish in many cases. After all, it is only natural! However, we have been asked to waste and wear out our lives in the service of God and others. Waste and wear out.
I think that we (myself VERY much included) rationalize away "our part" with what seem to be good reasons for not doing some things. I need to open my heart, my home and make time for much more because I believe that "our part" is much greater than we can imagine. We have so much. "To whom much is given, much is required". Do we give as much as we have been given? I know that I do not.
I think that gratitude plays a huge role in that. If we were to truly recognize the hand of God in all of the blessings we receive - I mean, truly recognize it - then I believe that we would be much more willing to do our part. We would also know what our part is. At least that's what I think. There is so much more to be done than what I am doing.
I know that God will sustain us and make our burdens light as we do His work. That type of service shouldn't end with our full-time missions. Priorities need to change with our circumstances, I guess. However, our first priority should always be God and His work. After all, we are His first priority.
Ad, thanks so much for the thought-provoking post. Now I hope to convert it into action. I'll let you know how it goes! :) You are a great man, Adam Foster.
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