On Doing Good

Yesterday's post left me thinking throughout the day about doing good.

I stand by my point: protests, on the whole, may do other things, but they do not do good.  They do not, for the most part, solve immediate problems or resolve the real needs of people.

But allow me to turn the question on myself: what am I doing to do good?  And by doing good, I mean both the daily actions I take as well as the conscious course of my life.

On a daily basis, am I doing good?  Am I making things better?  Am I solving an issue that matters to someone?  The challenge, of course, is that this should be simply wider than the work I do or the family and friends I have and am responsible for.  Those are really simply the things that I should be doing anyway.  No, this is the conscious seeking of doing the same for someone or something that is not remotely related to me or paying for me to do it.  It is the mindset of actively seeking for opportunities to do good in the lives of others for no other reason than it should be done.

And in the conscious course of my life:  is it directed towards doing good?  Yes, it is good to be concerned with various things and be conscious of them - the poor, the environment, homeless rabbits (my personal one), those that cannot find work - but are we going just being conscious and maybe dropping a few dollars in the virtual cup or get the magazine, or are we going to be actively involved in doing something, which takes time and commitment (often more so than money)?

This caused me to do a great deal of soul searching yesterday as I went about my business, especially the second part.  If I had passion for solving the multitudinous problems of this world, where would I start?  What would they be?

I am not quite sure at this moment, but where I find myself coming down is 1) On work and those who have been passed by in the current incarnation of the economy and business; and 2)  The continued existence of slavery anywhere in the world.  (And the homeless rabbits, of course.  Always them).

I am not sure that this are the things, nor do I quite know what I would do about any of them.  I remain confident in the fact that starting to think about them and becoming educated about them will help to show the path for them - or, perhaps it will reveal another path entirely.

A rather trite and hackneyed phrase in the Christian Church is "Do not do church, be the Church".  I might suggest we consider expanding that to cover us all:  "Do not talk about the good, be the Good."
Or as Mahatma Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."