Helping the needy
HELPING THE NEEDY IN THE SOCIETY
If we choose to use our status and influence to raise our voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if we choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if we retain the ability to imagine ourselves into the lives of those who do not have our advantages, then it will not only be our proud families who celebrate our existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality we will have helped change.
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
One of the most widespread and dangerous problems faced by humanity is that of poverty, hunger and starvation. There is nothing more horrifying than the realization that as we live our happy lives here, millions of our fellow human beings live in hunger and face starvation. The majority of the world population today lives in poverty. It is clear that the world system we have set up today is unjust and inhumane.
We should use our power of imagination to assume the shoes of the needy in the society.Many prefer not to exercise this imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are.
The Holy bible says in James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
At times we refuse to hear screams of people in need or see tears stimulated by hunger ; we chose to close our minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch us personally.
Let us not be tempted to envy people who live this way, they have no fewer nightmares than the rest. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
The Holy Quran also emphasizes on Zakat(paying an alms (or charity) tax to benefit the poor and the needy.) Which is one of the five pillars of Islam
"Whoever is made wealthy by Allah and does not pay the Zakat of his wealth, then on the Day of Resurrection his wealth will be made like a bald-headed poisonous male snake with two black spots over the eyes. The snake will encircle his neck and bite his cheeks and say, 'I am your wealth, I am your treasure.' " [Sahih Al-Bukhari] Volume 2, Book 24, Number 486
Helping the needy benefits the recipient, but it also benefits the donor in a variety of ways, from financial considerations to improvements in physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Greek author Plutarch once said: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
If we choose to use our status and influence to raise our voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if we choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if we retain the ability to imagine ourselves into the lives of those who do not have our advantages, then it will not only be our proud families who celebrate our existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality we will have helped change.
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
One of the most widespread and dangerous problems faced by humanity is that of poverty, hunger and starvation. There is nothing more horrifying than the realization that as we live our happy lives here, millions of our fellow human beings live in hunger and face starvation. The majority of the world population today lives in poverty. It is clear that the world system we have set up today is unjust and inhumane.
We should use our power of imagination to assume the shoes of the needy in the society.Many prefer not to exercise this imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are.
The Holy bible says in James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
At times we refuse to hear screams of people in need or see tears stimulated by hunger ; we chose to close our minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch us personally.
Let us not be tempted to envy people who live this way, they have no fewer nightmares than the rest. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
The Holy Quran also emphasizes on Zakat(paying an alms (or charity) tax to benefit the poor and the needy.) Which is one of the five pillars of Islam
"Whoever is made wealthy by Allah and does not pay the Zakat of his wealth, then on the Day of Resurrection his wealth will be made like a bald-headed poisonous male snake with two black spots over the eyes. The snake will encircle his neck and bite his cheeks and say, 'I am your wealth, I am your treasure.' " [Sahih Al-Bukhari] Volume 2, Book 24, Number 486
Helping the needy benefits the recipient, but it also benefits the donor in a variety of ways, from financial considerations to improvements in physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Greek author Plutarch once said: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
Well researched piece
ReplyDelete