Help
Sign In
alms
January 2009 
What brings you peace?
Posted on Jan 22nd, 2009
by 
panther_woman
panther_woman
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 22, 2009:
SAMBA
Access: Publicgood things
Posted on Dec 10th, 2008
by panther_woman
panther_woman
I went to church tonight after spending the better part of the day with my best friend digging Christmas decorations out of the dark and grimy basement at her old house. We went through all kinds of dusty boxes and found so many treasures! Some very heavy! I was on carry-it-upstairs duty while she was on excavate-it-from-the-depths duty. It was hard work but we did it on the request of my best friend's grandmother who can't walk for very long periods let alone go searching the basement and carrying fifty pound boxes of dishes.
It felt really good. Earlier this week I had been ranting about having no menfolk in my life to carry the heavy things for me, and here I go and do it for other people. Sobering. Much better than complaining about the lack of chivalry in today's society:)
I mentioned church because the sermon tonight had to do with MONEY and how alms-giving is essential to our mental well-being. I may be behind on my car payments and barely making the minimum payments on my credit cards but I can still spare some cash for coffee (and time for helping out), doing good things for others, especially people so close to me as to be family all but for a blood relation.
When my local public radio station was having its pledge drive not long ago, the announcer said that people get the same pleasure from giving to others as they do from sex and chocolate. Indeed the same pleasure-related area of the brain prickles with activity in all three cases.
The other point of the sermon was fiscal responsibility: if you're irresponsible with your spending don't blame God when you're out of cash, just learn from it. I have been very irresponsible lately and downright bratty, wrestling with entitlement issues, being greedy and whiny instead of giving thanks for what I have, and this sermon really opened my eyes to the reality of things. That I do have enough to get by even if money is tight right now, and that's more than a lot of people have and are content with! Even if things do get rough--I may not be able to afford my heat bill next month--there is help out there because good still exists in the world! And who am I to ever take assistance without giving back to someone equally in need!
Ah! It's so refreshing! I never felt this way even when I had surplus money to buy pretty things with:)
I've learned a valuable lesson today. If you give from a pure heart with God in mind, you'll always get back what you gave and more. And that, my friends, is something to have faith in.
A hearty hello
Posted on Dec 4th, 2008
by panther_woman
panther_woman
I already feel different in this community than in any other I've joined. I found out about this space via a scholarship website that recommended this site's Autumn scholarship to me. As an on-again, off-again student overcoming some great difficulties in the past few years, I am disappointed to find that my current gap in enrollment at a particular school seems to disqualify me from pursuing this particular college scholarship for fall of 2009. In any case my search for a place to be myself online without worry over social drama has finally brought me here, and I am glad. Perhaps I will apply anyway--it can't hurt--and if I don't qualify, I don't qualify. It is hard being an adult student with some time off under her belt. People don't seem to acknowledge I (and my sub-category of adult students) exist! I'll take it as a compliment, though, that folks can't seem to put me in a pre-determined box. I will get to Loyola University Chicago either way, and I hope to be blessed with many more scholarship opportunities in the coming months. I am learning about hard work and the ever-present possibility of things not working out exactly as one would hope or expect. Onward, though, and it's good to be here.
