Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Unto the least of these . . .
Watching TV last night and Harry Connick Jr. was in NO to help out. He grew up there, and was in his old neighborhood to check on his father's house and see if it withstood the storm, which it did. Then a neighbor came by and told him about a man who was lying on his porch down the street or somewhere else nearby (can't recall) and needed help. They drove the boat down there (yeah, they were in a boat) and this old, frail black man was lying on his front porch, totally naked, too weak to move or go for help. Harry had on waders and a t shirt, and he took off his t shirt and put it on this poor man to just give him a shred of dignity, and then carried him to the boat and they took him to get food and shelter. I just teared up - it brought to mind that Jesus told us, whatever you do for the least of these, you have done it for me. What a beautiful example of this very thing. Giving that man the shirt off his back and carrying him in his arms like a baby, taking him to safety. I know plenty of celebrities are doing concerts and benefits and telethons, but the ones who are impressing me the most are the ones who are personally going into the trenches and getting sweaty and dirty and serving and loving on people. You can see in their faces that it's not just for publicity. Harry, Julia Roberts (no makeup, jeans and a t-shirt, hugging and crying with women and their babies and some teenage girls), John Travolta and his wife, Lisa Marie Presley, Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, just to name a few. Doing what they can to help and to encourage and love on people, to make them feel they have value. That's what people want - they want to feel like they matter. Don't we all?
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4 comments:
am i the only one who finds it a little offensive to get blog spammed on a post that is personally meaningful? but whatever. i have a lot of admiration for the people (military, suvillian, celebrity, whoever) who are willing to get a little dirty to do what they can to help out. makes me wish i was in the posisition to do the same. when the tsunami hit, i had just started b&n and was waiting around for the nanny thing to take off. i considered signing up as a disaster relief volunteer, but you had to pay for your training and i didnt have the money. at least in the tsunami situation you that's how it was working, i'm sure since this is not overseas it's a lot different. i just wish there was more that i could do than donate my three dollars to the red cross in exchange for a glass of lemonade.
gail, on hamptons blog you mentioned that you were interested in helping the youth at your church get involved in aid. Camp Carter (the YMCA camp) is looking for people to help out and serve food. They have about 250 victims there now. The meal times and other needs are posted on their website campcarter.org. Hopefully this will help!
that bums me out that dr dan is reluctant to get sobc directly involved in hurrican relief efforts. but that is sort of the baptist way, to delegate away, "that's not our committee, not our job" kind of thing. sorry if *that* sounds cynical, but... ya know. hopefully josh will be able to hook something up w/ the camp carter people. maybe this can fill up your schedule a bit while you wait on your license. keep me posted on all of that, especially if jay does end up going w/ the tx baptist men. i'm proud of texas, stepping up and taking in so many people. i guess that's just the southern hospitality i've been raised to expect. :)
well the hair doesn't really look that different yet, i was going to wait until i got the color done too. that and i still haven't gotten a digital camera. i guess i could use joel's but i'm not really sure how to transfer the pics from the camera to the computer.
the hardcore drama with clinique, when i tried to quit and they "let me go".... jerks... that was actually after val left and we got a new manager who was even more clueless as to how to deal with people. basically her tactic was to come down super hard on all of us and drive us to quit so that she could hire her friends. and that's pretty much what she did. and after about six months she decided she couldn't take the stress of being management and she dropped back down to a part time sales position. random. good thing you chased me out of my job so you could be the top dog, only to decide you don't want it anymore.... people are weird.
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