LOVE WORKS DAILY 02/20/07 - HELP YOURSELF

LOVE WORKS DAILY 02/20/07 - HELP YOURSELF!

Hello Friends! I hope today finds you happy and well
and filled with the infinity that is love and the
capacity to give and receive it freely today!

Join our mailing list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loveworksdaily/

Or read us on the web:
http://loveworks.ebloggy.com/
http://loveworksdaily.blogspot.com/

INSPIRATIONAL MOMENT:
(Great Thoughts By History's Inspired Thinking Men and Women)
Life isn't a matter of milestones, but moments.

- Rose Kennedy

TIM's BLOG
(Random Thoughts and Tim's Daily World):

Hi!

Thanks to several people who wrote me today about yesterdays
question. Several asked me to keep it "off the list"
and I am, but the input and responses have really been
helpful.  Thanks!

NOW,  Helpful, is today LOVE WORKS topic...and although
this next story isn't one particularly filled with hope
and joy...it is about how people can choose to make
things better or worse...by contributing to the process,
or simply taking from it.

That's why I'm taking this break from our regular program
to talk to you about making a pledge to Public Television...
Just kidding...

Hey...We should have a pledge drive....people could make
pledges to do so many NICE and LOVING things in the next
year..and I'll send you a handy tote bag and subscription to
our program guide....

An idea!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
(Brand New and Classic Love Works Essays 2001-2007)

(From 03/08/02)

You may have heard the phrase "don't bite the hand that feeds you..."

Well, I have a story of someone who did just that.

As you have likely heard, we run a community resource called the "HELP
YOURSELF CENTER".

It's basically just a room full of free stuff.

People donate things, other people come in to get them for free.

As part of this center, we have a "food bank" area. It's a shelf that
we stock with lots of bread, canned goods, beans, rice, pasta etc.
as well as hygiene suppies like toothpase and shampoo etc.

We try to keep it stocked so that if someone comes in
we have at least a days groceries available for them.
Sometimes, when we run low of certain things, we use our own money to
keep this area stocked. It's not a large expense and one that we have
found to be satisying.

We have about a dozen or so people or families that
take food from the center regularly. (Other take once in a while but about
12 come in every other day or so)

One of these folks is a young man in his twenties, who lives close by
with his mother and several siblings.
Without giving more detail, he and his family seem clearly in need and
this young man comes in regularly to get food. (almost every day)

A couple weeks ago, he came into our retail shop (which is connected to
the center) and while he thought I wasn't looking, stole a $20
Playstation Game Disc and
ran home with it. He didn't even try to conceal that he had done it.
He just took it and ran.

What do we do?

Do we ban him from the shop? His mother is obviously in poor health and
they seem to be depending on the food we provide them.

Should we have called the police?

Do we confront him and demand a return of the item, and threaten to ban
him from our store?

He may come in again and attempt to steal other items, if we do nothing
at all.

Letting him get away with it wouldn't be fair...
what about justice?

In the end, we decided to let him bite the other hand.

We decided to have compassion for him and his situation and give him the
opportunity to make it right or do it right the next time.

I've made it clear that I know he stole from us.
I've made it clear that, in my heart, I hope that he
will not steal from us again.

I've made it clear that sadly, he has lost my trust, and that I will
have to watch him closely.

I hope he just brings back the game, but it's not likely. I hope that
he will be able to come to right decision about this matter.

But, in the end, if he doesn't....he has to live with it.

I only have to live with what I do and how I react.

And I'm chosing to react with LOVE, rather than anger
or resentment. I'm chosing compassion rather than justice. I'm chosing
to focus on hope rather than fairness.

Is it the RIGHT thing to do?...I think anything done with LOVE in your
heart, at least has good intention and can't be the WRONG thing. Will
it produce the desired results?

I don't know.

But the $20 game doesn't change my life. It dented my faith in
humanity. But it didn't change who I was.

I can only hope , that this $20 game that he stole from people who were
already offering help and will continue to offer help in spite of it...

will change his.

UPDATE 3/17/03 - This individual continued to visit our store and within
two weeks atempted to steal another item in plain view.
I had to escort him out of the store and tell him not to come back.

The very next day he came into the HELP YOURSELF CENTER to get bread
and some clothes. He continued to visit the HELP YOURSELF CENTER for a
few months and finally (possibly thinking I didn't remember him) came
back into our regular store. This time he came in to sell some items
(INCLUDING THE GAME HE HAD STOLEN FROM US MONTHS BEFORE! I have a very
good memory by the way!)

I refused to buy the items from him, and later that same day a person
claiming to be his mother came in to sell the same items. I refused
them again.

On a second visit, the mother tried to sell the same items again, and
when I refused, attempted to steal an item from the store herself.
After spotting her trying to put an item in her purse, she put it back
down and left.

On yet another visit, this same woman came into the store and yelled
and scolded me that we were not getting enough FREE food in our help
yourself center and that her son DEPENDED on the food to survive and
I was making him go hungry. She was upset at me for treating her son,
who was 30 years old and living at home and has not been able to get a
job, so badly. She was UPSET at ME for treating HIM badly. She told him
to just come in anyway. Wow!

A year later he still comes into the HELP YOURSELF CENTER for food and a
change of clothes (most days I see him he is wearing the same outfit day
after day after day). He still comes into our regular store under heavy
surveillence (and we have everything he wants to steal under glass),
and he acts as though I don't know who he is, or remember what he has
done, or that I've asked him not to come into the store anymore.

He seems fully unaware that he ever committed any offense or caused any
problem.

The key point, to me, is that he still seems fully unaware - and
without any sense of remorse.

I'm not sure what, if anything, has been or can be accomplished.

My behavior has stayed consistant....that of compassion and love.
I do have a deeper understanding of his situation. And actually
rather pity him.

But he is exactly the same over a year later.

Am I expecting TOO much, to expect LOVE to work miracles?

Or are some people beyond hope?

What do you think I should do? Keep on the path....or
knock this guy down a few pegs by giving him a larger dose of reality?
(i.e. maybe call the police?)

And if I did ...would THAT even make a difference?

I suspect he been knocked down and beaten up so much - he doesn't
even notice it any more.

Right now, I keep turning the other cheek.....but I'd love to hear your
opinion? Any ideas?

 

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Peace be with you.

From LOVE WORKS DAILY 03/08/02 & 03/17/03, 08/26/05
(c)2007 T.Thomas Henry

LOVE WORKS DAILY 02/02/07 - HELP YOURSELF!

PART II

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
(Brand New and Classic Love Works Essays 2001-2007)

UPDATE - 08/26/05

Our HELP YOURSELF CENTER has been closed for nearly a year now. 
After repeated abuses by the folks we were trying to help,  we decided
that is was in the best interest of all to support other causes rather
than contribute to a continued problem.

Amongst the problems...  repeated thefts from our retail store by
users of the HELP YOURSELF CENTER,  several occaisions of patrons
bringing a pick-up truck to haul away every good usable item from the
center and taking them to consignment shops, flea markets and garage
sales,  repeated (to this date) dumping of broken,  damaged,  and
destroyed items including old mattresses and broken TVs,  the leaving'
of bags of household trash at our drop off site (yes, garbage....
bottles, old food,  meat wrappers,  burned out light bulbs),  and
the wholesale demolition of the center by unattended children and
adults who tossed everything on the floor and walked away.

Sadly,  we had to give up on the HELP YOURSELF idea...because
it really did appear that many were just HELPING THEMSELVES....
at everyone else expense,  including ours.

The HELP YOURSELF CENTER was not a success, although I did enjoy the
attempt and did have quite a few people benifit from it over time.

But it was a wake up call to remind me that alot of  people really
DO need our love and compassion,  even if that does not mean
giving things away for free.

We still do give out free bread, two times per week.

But just today...moments before writing this....someone pulled up
in a VW van,  and loaded EVERY BOX,  EVERY LOAF of bread into it
and drove away.

FREE BREAD is FREE BREAD.

And so they took it all.

They were the only person to get any free bread today.

My son asked me..."Why did she do that?"

My only answer was..."Because that's just what some people do."

LOVE DOES WORK....but it's sure not easy sometimes.

Update 02/20/07

Well, It's been almost five years since the Help Yourself
Center opened.  And over 2 since it closed.  We've moved to
southern oregon and are still involved in charitable
organizations, and seek to provide aid whenever we can to
those who need it.

I don't think we will start another HELP YOURSELF CENTER here,
at least not right now.

People are people wherever you go, and maybe I'm not ready
to have our experiences repeat themselves quite yet.

I have noticed that there is a much greater sense of "giving"
here.  There are the takers...yes...but maybe it's because it's
such a small town, and people have so little...that they are
willing to share whatever they can with the next guy. 

At least in our little corner of the world...there does seem
to be a bit more "help others"...and a bit less "take for
myself".  It's very refreshing!

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Peace be with you.

From LOVE WORKS DAILY 03/08/02 & 03/17/03, 08/26/05
(c)2007 T.Thomas Henry