May 15, 2008

Thought for 05.15.08

Charitable feelings are of no use
without acts of charity.
Compassionate feelings are of no use
without acts of compassion.
Loving feelings are useless
unless they lead to acts of love.
The Priest and Levite may well have felt sorry
for the wounded man
as they steered a course past him,
and the Samaritan who stopped to help
may have been muttering
under his breath
at the inconvenience
the whole time.
How they felt
was immaterial to the wounded man.

Tobias Haller BSG

7 comments:

WSJM said...

Right on.

(As usual.)

klady said...

Yes. Thank you for this, Tobias.

I think your thought is the gist of the story recently told by Steve Lopez in his book The Soloist. If you or anyone haven't seen the talk he gave at All Saints, check out the link at Susan Russell's here. What was striking about it was how honest Steve was about his mixed motives and frustrations in trying to help someone who was, at first, the stranger on the side of the road. Yet he did what he did by simply going forward and doing what he could. Reminded me of Sara Miles' book, Take This Bread. Of course the principles apply to everyone -- not just the homeless -- just step in and help. Period. Right here. Right now. Not sure why it is sometimes so hard to do just that.

Fran said...

Amen indeed. I am sitting here reading your post and watching "Because the Bible Told Me So."

June Butler said...

Amen!

June Butler said...

Tobias, I'd like to post your "Thought For the Day" whole and entire on my blog as a reminder to me, giving you full credit, of course. I think it is wise and wonderful. No hard feelings if you'd rather I didn't.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG said...

Mais bien sûr, ma chère Mimi!

Jane R said...

Right. A very Jewish perspective, by the way!

Which makes perfect sense, since Jesus was a Jew to the end and it is from the heart of his tradition that he told this story.