WHY?

Why?

I'm being a bit lazy today and sending you a link to someone else's blog that I found this week. It pretty much sums up what I have in the courtyard behind my flat. It's an alcove of about 15 big steel wheelie bins and what this couple talk about is pretty much how I start my day when I leave the house. Read about it here.

These guys have a great blog and this next post really touched me and about how this is how we should all be acting as we are called to help others not as fortunate as ourselves. Whether you be Christian, Muslim, atheist or Jedi, we can all learn a bit from what this woman did (and also from how her poor husband reacted at first).

Again, I can't help but feel so lucky to have had so many privileges in my life. I've never had to rake through a bin for my next meal nor relieved myself in a rubbish tip in front of strangers. But equally, I don't know if I've ever gone to help someone who I've seen do so nor offered them a place to go when they're out in the cold. I see poverty every day here on my way to work, whether it be the wee old man who begs on the street corner between my house and the bus-stop or the young lad who guides his blind mother through the passengers on the bus asking for money. But do you know what the main difference here is? EVERYONE gives. When the blind woman got on the bus today, people were falling over themselves to get into their wallets and handbags to hand something over. School kids run up to the wee old man and hand him some cash and have a wee joke and giggle with him. It's humbling to see that people with so very little themselves are quick to look after their own. I'm not telling you to hand over your last pound to the next homeless person you see nor am I trying to guilt anyone into donating to charity, but what I am saying is that this woman who the Australians wrote about could have been anyone. She could have been someone's mother or sister, but she was definitely somebody's daughter. She could have had a rich husband, a well-paid job and a massive house. She could have been a top-class business woman. She could have been you or me.

I hope I remember this tomorrow on my way to the office.