My answer would have to be, Do i breathe?
This it is not because of me and the fact that i am so good, but because of what i believe. My Savior came to be a servant, and expects me to follow suit. It's not the good in me, but in Him.
When i was young, i had excellent teachers in this in my own family. As a teen, i was routinely involved in volunteering opportunities. In college, i joined a volunteer fraternity. When i go to church, when a service is over i automatically start picking up bulletins people have left behind and putting up song books, it's a habit i've just had as long as i can remember at every church i've attended.
So i do volunteer. At the church nursery, and sweeping the church parlor after Sunday services. At the homeless ministry, out on the streets. Babysitting handicapped children so their parents can get a break. Habitat for Humanity builds, and bringing supplies for different ministries. Serving food to the homeless. Any place a janitor/housekeeper/diaper changer/nose wiper/cook/general-lifter-and-mover is needed, i will try to get in there and lend a hand.
No, i'm not good, G-d is, and He by His love transforms me.
Whoopi Goldberg supposedly said that, if every person in the US would volunteer just a few hours a week, it would add up to the equivalent of several thousand full time jobs being done each year. What the numbers would add up to i don't actually know, but i know it would make a difference.
My little bit is just a tiny, little bit. If we all put in a little bit, and knit those little bits together, maybe this world would change.
Today is:
Area Code Day -- US (went into effect this day in 1951)
Day of Russian Militsiya -- Russia
Deepawali/Deepavali/Diwali/Divali(Festival of Lights) -- Hindu; Jain; Sikh (for the next five days; local dating customs and government holidays for this Lunar New Year/Festival of Lights can vary)
Kag Tihar/Kag Puja -- Day of the Crows (day one of the festival)
Dia de la Tradicion -- Argentina (birth anniversary of Jose Hernandez)
Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Beacon Lighting -- Split Rock Lighthouse, Two Harbors, MN, US (memorial for the Edmund Fitzgerald and all who have lost their lives in Great Lakes shipwrecks)
First Cry of Independence Day / Los Santos Uprising Day -- Panama (an official flag day)
Forget-Me-Not Day -- informal day to spend a bit of time with relatives you don't see often
Goddess of Reason's Day (Revolutionary France)
Guinness World Records' Day -- celebrating ordinary people who do extraordinary things, go try for a record! anniversary of the day in 1951 that Sir Hugh Beaver got the idea to create a book supplying answers to much debated questions, such as which game birds are the fastest fliers
The Guinness World Records Book now holds the title of the best-selling copyrighted book of all time, and is one of the most frequently stolen books from US libraries!
Guru Nanak Jayanti -- India; Nepal (celebration of the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak)
Hari Pahlawan -- Indonesia (Heroes' Day/Warrior's Day)
Martini -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (beginning of winter festival that starts on Martinmas Eve)
Maputo Day -- Maputo, Mozambique
National Toothpaste Appreciation Day -- not official, but i'm sure the dentifrice industry loves this one
National Vanilla Cupcake Day
Sleep Dangerously Night -- internet generated, a night to switch sides of the bed with your spouse and see who falls out of bed first
St. Andrew Avellino's Day (Patron of apoplexics, for a holy death, stroke victims; Badlato, Naples, and Sicily, Italy; stroke victims; for a holy death; against apoplexy, strokes, and sudden death)
St. Martin's Eve -- Germany; Portugal (Martimas Eve)
USMC Day -- US (anniversary of founding in 1775, includes the Marine Corps Birthday Ball)
Wish-Spoiling Sports Day -- Fairy Calendar (Imps, Gremlins, and grumpy Goblins)
World Science Day for Peace and Development -- UN
Anniversaries Today:
Establishment of Badlands National Park, SD, US, 1978
Establisnment of the United States Marine Corps, 1775
Birthdays Today:
Ellen Pompeo, 1969
Vanessa Angel, 1963
Neil Gaiman, 1960
MacKenzie Phillips, 1959
Sinbad, 1956
Roland Emmerich, 1955
Ann Reinking, 1949
Donna Fargo, 1949
Tim Rice, 1944
Russel Charles Means, 1940
Russel Means, 1939
Roy Scheider, 1932
Richard Burton, 1925
Jane Froman, 1907
Claude Rains, 1889
Friedrick Voon Schiller, 1759
Oliver Goldsmith, 1728
William Hogarth, 1697
Martin Luther, 1483
Debuting/Premiering Today:
Microsoft Windows, 1983 (sometimes so slow, it's called "win-doze")
"Sesame Street"(TV), 1969
Today in History:
Rene Descartes has the dreams that inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy, 1619
The Dutch formally cede New Netherlands to the English; it is renamed New York, 1674
France ends forced worship of God, substitute the Goddess of Reason, 1793
The US state of Kentucky outlaws dueling, 1801
Stanley presumes that he has met Livingston in Ujiji, Central Africa, 1871
The first Woman's Christian Temperance Union meeting is held in Boston, 1891
The first Gideon Bible is put in a hotel room, 1908
Hirohito ascends the throne as Emperor of Japan, 1928
The Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston, 1958
The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board, 1975
A 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario, Canada derails in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada just west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, causing a massive explosion and the largest peacetime evacuation in Canadian history and one of the largest in North American history, 1979
The communist regime of Bulgaria falls, 1989
The "Codex Leicester", the only Leonardo da Vinci manuscript owned in the United States and the only one in the world still in private hands, was sold at auction to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who paid $30.8 million, 1994
Thousands of people people march toward the royal palace of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur to hand over a memorandum to the King demanding electoral reform, 2007
Vietnam evacuates about 600,000 citizens under the threat of Typhoon Haiyan, 2013
I volunteer, not as much as you, and I volunteer because I need to feel I am giving and not just taking on this earth. It is a need that must be filled. I wish I could say I do it for others, but I do it because I just have to. I just feel very empty if I am no sharing time or money or something with others.
ReplyDeleteyou are good. and god through you.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it sounds like you are a wonderful person. Life has its difficulties but how God has taught you is the way it goes. After my stroke years ago, I could have gave up but he taught me that having my wonderful wife and children with me, that's life and that's how I go each day.
ReplyDeleteHave a beautiful Tuesday my friend. See ya.
Cruisin Paul
I volunteer too. Differently than you do, but there are many things we do to aid the homeless, boating issues and humanitarian foundation that does great work around the world. We all must give back. I've always been impressed with your eagerness to give back.
ReplyDeleteThank you for all you do.
Have a fabulous day. ♥♥♥
My mom always said that people should know we are Christians not by our politics, or by what church we go to, but by the love we show. And the smallest act of giving is still an act of love, and that's what I hope to show too. So you and me agree together, that if we can inspire other hearts to do the same; we can change the world.
ReplyDelete