While having my breakfast this morning I browsed through a newsletter which had ‘connecting with World Mission’ as its tagline.
It made me sick. The whole paper reeks of neo-imperialism cum oh-those-poor-deprived-bas****s-of-the-Third-world.
Glossy photographs of ‘the good work’ and smiles galore, article headlines such as “…Teaching English. Tarantulas. Diarrhoea. No toilet roll.” No toilet roll?! Boo fucken hoo.
I’ve nothing against the idea of people leaving the comfort of their homes to go and help some street kid or diseased 80 year old thousands of miles away.
However, when such work is done by people who are out to ‘do good’ just cuz it’s part of being a good Christian, or out of some idealistic moralist high ground, then it pisses me off.
If you go around doing good deeds so you can fill your moral kitty with shining examples, then you don’t deserve heaven. You’re a scheming, selfish idiot.
If you go out to help in someplace where you don’t have the facilities of where you came from, shut up about the lack of amenities. You made a choice.
The world has its dark areas. The people living in them are not stupid. They are the way they are because of a host of causes: of their own making and of the doings of others. It doesn’t take a person who wears gloves while helping them to show them that there is a better life. Love does show them the way, and those who work with a genuine heart have my gratitude. But, most of the time, the ones being helped already knew about a better world long before they even saw a clean faced stranger reaching out to help them.
4 comments:
last line is awesome... good stuff
But i'd have to add that i do not agree with the derision of those who do it for the fame. As long as the work is getting done, think it's k. Ends justify the means here, means meaning not how you help them but that you are. Maybe you won't get admitted into heaven, but you sure as hell will give someone a chance of dreaming of one.
some good thoughts al..
i think it's twofold tho..like the comedian says, the work needs to be done...but i also have my issues abt people being out there for the fame and to "fill the moral kitty"..i don't agree with that and don't see the point..but i also think that sometimes we only see the surface stuff...i'd like to hope that there's more to it to motives than just getting recognition..
I think helping the poor is awesome.but it's so important to see them as fellow human beings too..like you said, you have to show them love..after all that's what it's abt isn't it? Showing LGLO..showing others the love that God has for them and for us?
hmmm some thoughtful insights and i would like to further amplify the whole pejorative cognition that is often demonstrated in scenarios such as these. I would disagree with 'the comedian'. Pragmatic philosophy is undermining and deteriorates the cause that began. The end does not justify the means. The end is objective and absolute it does not constrain to a relative ideology -- in cases as these. People who practise humanitarianism must be questioned. exploitation is a negative thing. in cases as these pseudo-altruistic people. The purpose for them is to exploit the weak, the less advantageous demographic or individual. exploitation does not conform to the materialistic, it conforms to higher faculties of the world and also the nature of being. I am not admitting that helping the poor whilst having a wrong intention is bad. It is good in 'a sense' for the individual that was helped. but it is even worse for the person who helped, his conscience forbares from commiting an act of righteousness, his conscience is inundated by inconsiderate gain in the strata of the status quo. But yes... as Paul sas, it is by grace you have been saved and not by works. works is the vindication of salvation.
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