All Saints
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle C
Object:
Theme For The Day
The world offers many blessings, but none of these things will save us: only the blessing of God in Jesus Christ can do that.
Old Testament Lesson
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Daniel's Apocalyptic Dream
The omission of the material from the middle of this divided passage spares the reader some of the troubling and hard-to-interpret apocalyptic imagery of Daniel's dream, but it also omits the important detail of the appearance of the Ancient One in verses 9-14, and the messianic figure who appears before him and is given dominion over all the earth. Any sermon on this passage must attempt to at least summarize the omitted material, for to leap directly from the very beginning of the vision in verses 1-3 to the interpretation of it in verses 15-18 makes little sense. The conclusion -- and the message of hope for oppressed people -- is verse 18: "the holy ones of the Most High shall receive ... and possess the kingdom forever."
New Testament Lesson
Ephesians 1:11-23
The Inheritance Of The Adopted
In the earlier verses of this pericope, Paul has been introducing his readers (particularly the Gentiles among them) to the concept of adoption: that they, while lacking the spiritual pedigree of children of Abraham, are yet received into God's family by grace. Here, he develops the metaphor further, speaking of a spiritual inheritance (v. 11). This is not their own doing, but rather something that God has predestined to happen, according to the "plan for the fullness of time" mentioned in verse 10. The "seal of the Holy Spirit" with which believers are marked (v. 13) is undoubtedly baptism. The remaining verses of this week's selection spin this proclamation out in glorious, celebratory language, ending with the concluding doxology of verses 20-23, celebrating Christ pantocrator, the exalted ruler over all creation.
The Gospel
Luke 6:20-31
Blessings, Woes, And Reversals
This passage, from the discourse known as "the Sermon on the Plain," is Luke's version of the Beatitudes. It is far less familiar -- and more troubling -- than the well-known version from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). Matthew's version is all about blessings. Luke's includes not only blessings, but also "woes." While this may sound troubling to many comfortably situated congregations, it in fact reflects a consistent theme of Luke's Gospel: social justice. Luke associates the reversal of the fortunes of the rich and powerful of the world with the coming reign of God. This celebration of reversals is also seen in the Magnificat ("He has brought down the powerful from their thrones ... and sent the rich away empty" -- 1:52-53). The latter portion of this weeks' selection is Jesus' exhortation to love one's enemies, "turning the other cheek."
Preaching Possibilities
Today's New Testament Lesson is the Beatitudes -- but not the familiar version from the Gospel of Matthew. Luke's version of the Beatitudes is different. Luke's version stings. His version includes not only blessings, but also what Jesus calls "woes":
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
-- Luke 6:24-26
The rich, the comfortable, the happy, the well-regarded: these are the ones on whom our Lord pronounces woe. These harsh words of Jesus' cause us Americans to sit up and take notice. They're not the gospel we're used to hearing. Don't we live in the land of opportunity, where -- at least in theory -- the career track of J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and even Martha Stewart is open to all? Doesn't our Declaration of Independence celebrate "the pursuit of happiness"? Isn't the essence of "the American Dream" to become wealthy? If so, it sounds an awful lot like Jesus is pronouncing woe upon our whole culture!
Many of us think we know what sin is. Sin, in the popular imagination, is pretty much synonymous with that other three-letter word that begins with the letter "s": sex. Apart from the slab of death-by-chocolate cake on the restaurant menu, when was the last time you heard something described as "sinful" that didn't have anything to do with sex? Yet sexual sin is conspicuously absent from Jesus' list of woes. Could it be there are other sins he considers more grievous -- at least for that place and time -- and therefore more worthy of mention? Could it be that, if Jesus were watching the Super Bowl a few years ago, on the day of singer Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction," he'd be more outraged by the commercials for the luxury cars and the credit cards than by the crudity of the half-time show? From the things Jesus chooses to include in his list of woes, you'd have to think so.
It is, of course, a dangerous thing to argue from silence -- and by no means should we assume that Jesus is unconcerned with sexual sin. Yet the simple fact is, the gospels record him as having far more to say about economic justice than about sexual immorality. It's a pretty fair call that he considers a callous attitude toward the poor as more of a clear and present spiritual danger for his listeners than the sort of behaviors we usually consider under the term "obscenity." The only obscenities Jesus condemns in Luke, chapter 6 are conspicuous wealth, a full belly, self-satisfied laughter, and generally being at the top of the heap.
Over against the list of woes, of course, are the blessings. These are more familiar to our ears, for they sound more like Matthew's well-known list:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you
on account of the Son of Man.
-- Matthew 6:20b-22
Jesus' beatitudes in Luke -- his blessings -- are the mirror image of his woes. There are four of each, and they correspond exactly to each other:
Blessed are the poor ... Woe to the rich.
Blessed are the hungry ... Woe to those who are full.
Blessed are those who weep ... Woe to those who laugh.
Blessed are the hated outcasts ... Woe to those whom everyone admires.
And as for us, the rich (by comparison to the rest of the world)? Is he actually pronouncing woe upon us?
Not in an absolute sense. Certainly, Jesus -- who, by all accounts, enjoyed a good banquet and loved to laugh -- is not against enjoying the fruits of God's good earth. He is pronouncing woe upon us (or anyone else) who confuses the material blessings of this world with the eternal blessing of God.
Woe to you who are rich, he says, for you have received your consolation. If you or I put all our trust into material wealth, then where are we when health fails, or even life itself? We can't take it with us: it's a one-time payout, one we'll never see again.
Woe to you who are full now, he says, for you will be hungry. All right, so maybe most of us have never known real hunger -- certainly not along the lines of a nomad in sub-Saharan Africa, or a peasant in North Korea -- but if we take our daily, physical fullness for granted, surely there are other, spiritual hungers that trouble us: ones we may never have noticed, were our thoughts focused solely on where the next meal is coming from.
Woe to you who are laughing now, he says, for you will mourn and weep. Yes, indeed we will. No human life is free from sorrow -- even though our culture may strive mightily to deny that basic truth, pretending salvation comes through what we own, rather than the Lord to whom we have committed our lives. It is those who deny death -- who convince themselves, irrationally, that a life of perpetual laughter is possible -- on whom Jesus pronounces woe. For one day, grief and mourning will come even to them and because they have denied it for so long, because they have pushed life's ordinary sadness away with all manner of trivial pleasures -- they will be utterly unprepared to deal with it.
Jesus is no killjoy. In saying "woe to you," he's not saying we ought to give up any claim to spending the money we've earned, or eating the food we've gathered, or laughing in those times or seasons when laughter is called for. What he is saying is that we ought to give up any notion that any of these things will save us, for, as the author of Ecclesiastes puts it, these are but "vanity, and a chasing after wind."
It's as though there are two standards: God's standard and the world's standard. Many of the things the world considers lovely and beautiful are lovely and beautiful, and we can celebrate them as God's good gifts. Yet if we turn to those things alone in our search for life's meaning, and allow them push God out of the way, then the only thing ahead for us is truly woe. It is only when we come to realize both how much we have and how little, that we are ready to turn to Jesus at last. For it is only in him that true blessedness is to be found.
Prayer For The Day
Gracious God,
we want to give you our best,
lest in gaining the world we lose life itself.
Help us to know more clearly what you would have us do
with the good things you have entrusted to our care.
May we be truly thankful for your goodness,
and generous in our giving:
that our very lives may be transformed
into a sign of abundant life for others.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
To Illustrate
But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made.
What you have is all you'll ever get.
And it's trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself.
Your self will not satisfy you for long.
And it's trouble ahead if you think life's all fun and games.
There's suffering to be met, and you're going to meet it.
There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests. Look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.
-- Luke 6:24-26, from Eugene Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2002)
***
We all know that we Americans, compared to most people in the world, are the wealthy ones, the secure ones. (We may not all feel especially wealthy or secure much of the time, but by comparison, we are.) This truth is powerfully demonstrated in an item that began circulating on the internet, not long after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The person who put this list together was in no way trying to belittle the sufferings of those who died in the attacks, or their survivors. This author was simply trying to put those numbers in perspective, compared to the kinds of losses that happen every day in our world, but never hit the headlines:
On September 11, 2001,
24,000 people died of hunger
6,000 children died of diarrhea, 2,700 from measles
1,411 women died in childbirth
3,288 children were made homeless by war
Add to those figures in the thousands, these figures that number in the millions. On September 11, 2001:
1.1 million African children under the age of 15 were living with HIV
100 million children had no access to basic education
1,100 million people had no access to safe drinking water
2,400 million people had no access to sanitation
1,200 million people were living on less than $1 a day
If Jesus were speaking the Beatitudes to today's world, these thousands of millions are the poor he would consider "blessed," despite their tribulation.
***
Someone once asked the famous missionary E. Stanley Jones what he thought of the Beatitudes, and he alluded to their profoundly disturbing aspect as he said, "At first sight, you felt they turned everything upside-down. At second sight, you understand that they turn everything right side up. The first time you read them they are impossible. The second time you read them, nothing else is possible. The beatitudes are not a chart for Christian duty. They are a charter for Christian liberty."
***
A full larder compromises our yearning for God. It enables us to deny our neediness and dependence on God. We gain the illusion of control. We confuse wealth with blessing. We allow wealth to separate us from other people. We become protective, sometimes greedy, and see the needy as failures, not kin.... Which will it be, God or Mammon?
We hate that choice, and that is our curse, our woe. We distrust the very door that opens to God, and yet we cannot turn blithely away from that door. We know our appetites are making us small and unfree, and yet we cannot turn off that engine.
I don't believe that Jesus was condemning the wealthy, the full or the happy. I think he saw, with sadness, the quandary that comes from having too much and too little at the same time.
-- Tom Ehrich, On a Journey e-newsletter, February 14, 2004
***
Dorothea Hertzberg served a term as a Peace Corps volunteer in the tiny, impoverished African country of Burkina Faso. One swelteringly hot day she was riding her bicycle along a cattle trail, when she felt something in the machinery snap. The wheels of the bike still turned, and so did the pedals, but pumping the pedals accomplished nothing.
Dorothea resigned herself to pushing her bike the seven miles she had yet to go. The temperature was 115, and she had only half a bottle of water. Just then, an elderly man came toward her on his own bike. He asked what was wrong, and when she told him, he stopped and rummaged in his belongings until he found a long rubber strap, the sort of thing that could be used to tie packages onto the back of a bike. He attached one end of the strap to his bike, and the other to Dorothea's handlebars. Turning around to go back the way he'd come, he began to pull the Peace Corps worker on her bike, toward her destination.
She wrote:
It turned out to be one of the most hysterical yet touching moments of my life. What a scene we must have been. This poor man vigorously pedaling and dripping with sweat as he towed the American princess through the barren desert. Every villager we saw along the way shrieked in surprise and called out "Ney Yibeogo!" (Good morning!) After a while, I began to feel terribly guilty, posed on my bike, waving like a Rose Parade float queen....
An hour later we arrived at my destination. He was exhausted, I was giddy and in awe of his generosity. I took a long look at his face and those kind eyes, and I told myself never to forget it, because this man is the heart of Burkina Faso. This man is not an exception in his culture. He is the very essence of it.
Two years ago, at the age of 27, I volunteered for Peace Corps service to "give back" to the world. Today, I realize I gained much more in return.... When I think back on that moment when I was stranded on that deserted cow path, there was a part of me that was calm, because I knew where I was. I was in a place where you never feel alone or abandoned because someone will always come along to help you; where a starving woman would give her last bowl of food to a stranger; where kids are elated to play with an old tire and a stick. A place where family unity is everything and the guest is paramount.
To the Burkinabé, these principles are more than just cultural values, they are a way of life. Burkina Faso means "the land of the upright and courageous people." It is one of the poorest countries in the world, but a place where I learned what giving truly means.
-- Dorothea Hertzberg, "A Lesson In Giving," New York Times, August 23, 2003
***
"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants; the other is getting it."
-- Oscar Wilde
The world offers many blessings, but none of these things will save us: only the blessing of God in Jesus Christ can do that.
Old Testament Lesson
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Daniel's Apocalyptic Dream
The omission of the material from the middle of this divided passage spares the reader some of the troubling and hard-to-interpret apocalyptic imagery of Daniel's dream, but it also omits the important detail of the appearance of the Ancient One in verses 9-14, and the messianic figure who appears before him and is given dominion over all the earth. Any sermon on this passage must attempt to at least summarize the omitted material, for to leap directly from the very beginning of the vision in verses 1-3 to the interpretation of it in verses 15-18 makes little sense. The conclusion -- and the message of hope for oppressed people -- is verse 18: "the holy ones of the Most High shall receive ... and possess the kingdom forever."
New Testament Lesson
Ephesians 1:11-23
The Inheritance Of The Adopted
In the earlier verses of this pericope, Paul has been introducing his readers (particularly the Gentiles among them) to the concept of adoption: that they, while lacking the spiritual pedigree of children of Abraham, are yet received into God's family by grace. Here, he develops the metaphor further, speaking of a spiritual inheritance (v. 11). This is not their own doing, but rather something that God has predestined to happen, according to the "plan for the fullness of time" mentioned in verse 10. The "seal of the Holy Spirit" with which believers are marked (v. 13) is undoubtedly baptism. The remaining verses of this week's selection spin this proclamation out in glorious, celebratory language, ending with the concluding doxology of verses 20-23, celebrating Christ pantocrator, the exalted ruler over all creation.
The Gospel
Luke 6:20-31
Blessings, Woes, And Reversals
This passage, from the discourse known as "the Sermon on the Plain," is Luke's version of the Beatitudes. It is far less familiar -- and more troubling -- than the well-known version from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). Matthew's version is all about blessings. Luke's includes not only blessings, but also "woes." While this may sound troubling to many comfortably situated congregations, it in fact reflects a consistent theme of Luke's Gospel: social justice. Luke associates the reversal of the fortunes of the rich and powerful of the world with the coming reign of God. This celebration of reversals is also seen in the Magnificat ("He has brought down the powerful from their thrones ... and sent the rich away empty" -- 1:52-53). The latter portion of this weeks' selection is Jesus' exhortation to love one's enemies, "turning the other cheek."
Preaching Possibilities
Today's New Testament Lesson is the Beatitudes -- but not the familiar version from the Gospel of Matthew. Luke's version of the Beatitudes is different. Luke's version stings. His version includes not only blessings, but also what Jesus calls "woes":
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
-- Luke 6:24-26
The rich, the comfortable, the happy, the well-regarded: these are the ones on whom our Lord pronounces woe. These harsh words of Jesus' cause us Americans to sit up and take notice. They're not the gospel we're used to hearing. Don't we live in the land of opportunity, where -- at least in theory -- the career track of J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and even Martha Stewart is open to all? Doesn't our Declaration of Independence celebrate "the pursuit of happiness"? Isn't the essence of "the American Dream" to become wealthy? If so, it sounds an awful lot like Jesus is pronouncing woe upon our whole culture!
Many of us think we know what sin is. Sin, in the popular imagination, is pretty much synonymous with that other three-letter word that begins with the letter "s": sex. Apart from the slab of death-by-chocolate cake on the restaurant menu, when was the last time you heard something described as "sinful" that didn't have anything to do with sex? Yet sexual sin is conspicuously absent from Jesus' list of woes. Could it be there are other sins he considers more grievous -- at least for that place and time -- and therefore more worthy of mention? Could it be that, if Jesus were watching the Super Bowl a few years ago, on the day of singer Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction," he'd be more outraged by the commercials for the luxury cars and the credit cards than by the crudity of the half-time show? From the things Jesus chooses to include in his list of woes, you'd have to think so.
It is, of course, a dangerous thing to argue from silence -- and by no means should we assume that Jesus is unconcerned with sexual sin. Yet the simple fact is, the gospels record him as having far more to say about economic justice than about sexual immorality. It's a pretty fair call that he considers a callous attitude toward the poor as more of a clear and present spiritual danger for his listeners than the sort of behaviors we usually consider under the term "obscenity." The only obscenities Jesus condemns in Luke, chapter 6 are conspicuous wealth, a full belly, self-satisfied laughter, and generally being at the top of the heap.
Over against the list of woes, of course, are the blessings. These are more familiar to our ears, for they sound more like Matthew's well-known list:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you
on account of the Son of Man.
-- Matthew 6:20b-22
Jesus' beatitudes in Luke -- his blessings -- are the mirror image of his woes. There are four of each, and they correspond exactly to each other:
Blessed are the poor ... Woe to the rich.
Blessed are the hungry ... Woe to those who are full.
Blessed are those who weep ... Woe to those who laugh.
Blessed are the hated outcasts ... Woe to those whom everyone admires.
And as for us, the rich (by comparison to the rest of the world)? Is he actually pronouncing woe upon us?
Not in an absolute sense. Certainly, Jesus -- who, by all accounts, enjoyed a good banquet and loved to laugh -- is not against enjoying the fruits of God's good earth. He is pronouncing woe upon us (or anyone else) who confuses the material blessings of this world with the eternal blessing of God.
Woe to you who are rich, he says, for you have received your consolation. If you or I put all our trust into material wealth, then where are we when health fails, or even life itself? We can't take it with us: it's a one-time payout, one we'll never see again.
Woe to you who are full now, he says, for you will be hungry. All right, so maybe most of us have never known real hunger -- certainly not along the lines of a nomad in sub-Saharan Africa, or a peasant in North Korea -- but if we take our daily, physical fullness for granted, surely there are other, spiritual hungers that trouble us: ones we may never have noticed, were our thoughts focused solely on where the next meal is coming from.
Woe to you who are laughing now, he says, for you will mourn and weep. Yes, indeed we will. No human life is free from sorrow -- even though our culture may strive mightily to deny that basic truth, pretending salvation comes through what we own, rather than the Lord to whom we have committed our lives. It is those who deny death -- who convince themselves, irrationally, that a life of perpetual laughter is possible -- on whom Jesus pronounces woe. For one day, grief and mourning will come even to them and because they have denied it for so long, because they have pushed life's ordinary sadness away with all manner of trivial pleasures -- they will be utterly unprepared to deal with it.
Jesus is no killjoy. In saying "woe to you," he's not saying we ought to give up any claim to spending the money we've earned, or eating the food we've gathered, or laughing in those times or seasons when laughter is called for. What he is saying is that we ought to give up any notion that any of these things will save us, for, as the author of Ecclesiastes puts it, these are but "vanity, and a chasing after wind."
It's as though there are two standards: God's standard and the world's standard. Many of the things the world considers lovely and beautiful are lovely and beautiful, and we can celebrate them as God's good gifts. Yet if we turn to those things alone in our search for life's meaning, and allow them push God out of the way, then the only thing ahead for us is truly woe. It is only when we come to realize both how much we have and how little, that we are ready to turn to Jesus at last. For it is only in him that true blessedness is to be found.
Prayer For The Day
Gracious God,
we want to give you our best,
lest in gaining the world we lose life itself.
Help us to know more clearly what you would have us do
with the good things you have entrusted to our care.
May we be truly thankful for your goodness,
and generous in our giving:
that our very lives may be transformed
into a sign of abundant life for others.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
To Illustrate
But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made.
What you have is all you'll ever get.
And it's trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself.
Your self will not satisfy you for long.
And it's trouble ahead if you think life's all fun and games.
There's suffering to be met, and you're going to meet it.
There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests. Look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.
-- Luke 6:24-26, from Eugene Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2002)
***
We all know that we Americans, compared to most people in the world, are the wealthy ones, the secure ones. (We may not all feel especially wealthy or secure much of the time, but by comparison, we are.) This truth is powerfully demonstrated in an item that began circulating on the internet, not long after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The person who put this list together was in no way trying to belittle the sufferings of those who died in the attacks, or their survivors. This author was simply trying to put those numbers in perspective, compared to the kinds of losses that happen every day in our world, but never hit the headlines:
On September 11, 2001,
24,000 people died of hunger
6,000 children died of diarrhea, 2,700 from measles
1,411 women died in childbirth
3,288 children were made homeless by war
Add to those figures in the thousands, these figures that number in the millions. On September 11, 2001:
1.1 million African children under the age of 15 were living with HIV
100 million children had no access to basic education
1,100 million people had no access to safe drinking water
2,400 million people had no access to sanitation
1,200 million people were living on less than $1 a day
If Jesus were speaking the Beatitudes to today's world, these thousands of millions are the poor he would consider "blessed," despite their tribulation.
***
Someone once asked the famous missionary E. Stanley Jones what he thought of the Beatitudes, and he alluded to their profoundly disturbing aspect as he said, "At first sight, you felt they turned everything upside-down. At second sight, you understand that they turn everything right side up. The first time you read them they are impossible. The second time you read them, nothing else is possible. The beatitudes are not a chart for Christian duty. They are a charter for Christian liberty."
***
A full larder compromises our yearning for God. It enables us to deny our neediness and dependence on God. We gain the illusion of control. We confuse wealth with blessing. We allow wealth to separate us from other people. We become protective, sometimes greedy, and see the needy as failures, not kin.... Which will it be, God or Mammon?
We hate that choice, and that is our curse, our woe. We distrust the very door that opens to God, and yet we cannot turn blithely away from that door. We know our appetites are making us small and unfree, and yet we cannot turn off that engine.
I don't believe that Jesus was condemning the wealthy, the full or the happy. I think he saw, with sadness, the quandary that comes from having too much and too little at the same time.
-- Tom Ehrich, On a Journey e-newsletter, February 14, 2004
***
Dorothea Hertzberg served a term as a Peace Corps volunteer in the tiny, impoverished African country of Burkina Faso. One swelteringly hot day she was riding her bicycle along a cattle trail, when she felt something in the machinery snap. The wheels of the bike still turned, and so did the pedals, but pumping the pedals accomplished nothing.
Dorothea resigned herself to pushing her bike the seven miles she had yet to go. The temperature was 115, and she had only half a bottle of water. Just then, an elderly man came toward her on his own bike. He asked what was wrong, and when she told him, he stopped and rummaged in his belongings until he found a long rubber strap, the sort of thing that could be used to tie packages onto the back of a bike. He attached one end of the strap to his bike, and the other to Dorothea's handlebars. Turning around to go back the way he'd come, he began to pull the Peace Corps worker on her bike, toward her destination.
She wrote:
It turned out to be one of the most hysterical yet touching moments of my life. What a scene we must have been. This poor man vigorously pedaling and dripping with sweat as he towed the American princess through the barren desert. Every villager we saw along the way shrieked in surprise and called out "Ney Yibeogo!" (Good morning!) After a while, I began to feel terribly guilty, posed on my bike, waving like a Rose Parade float queen....
An hour later we arrived at my destination. He was exhausted, I was giddy and in awe of his generosity. I took a long look at his face and those kind eyes, and I told myself never to forget it, because this man is the heart of Burkina Faso. This man is not an exception in his culture. He is the very essence of it.
Two years ago, at the age of 27, I volunteered for Peace Corps service to "give back" to the world. Today, I realize I gained much more in return.... When I think back on that moment when I was stranded on that deserted cow path, there was a part of me that was calm, because I knew where I was. I was in a place where you never feel alone or abandoned because someone will always come along to help you; where a starving woman would give her last bowl of food to a stranger; where kids are elated to play with an old tire and a stick. A place where family unity is everything and the guest is paramount.
To the Burkinabé, these principles are more than just cultural values, they are a way of life. Burkina Faso means "the land of the upright and courageous people." It is one of the poorest countries in the world, but a place where I learned what giving truly means.
-- Dorothea Hertzberg, "A Lesson In Giving," New York Times, August 23, 2003
***
"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants; the other is getting it."
-- Oscar Wilde
