(no subject)
"So here's the ultimate lesson on power: If you want to be blessed, you must use your power to protect and defend those less fortunate. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu points out, it's the very heart of Jesus' message in the New Testament and God's prophets in the Hebrew Bible, the heart of what power is and what it should do.
The God we worship is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That God knows, that God hears, that God sees, and that God will come down to deliver his people....The God we worship is not a God who is neutral. Our God is a God who takes sides. Our God is a God who takes the side of the poor, of the oppressed, of the downtrodden, and that is where the Church of God must be found. The Church of God must be the voice of the voiceless ones. The Church of God must be with the poor, the homeless, the naked and the hungry.
So how should heroes use their power? Maybe we can't rescue people from a volcano or stop bullets with our bare hands. But we can be heroes by saving others in less obvious ways. We can extend compassion and kindness to those within our circle, and we can reach out and project our power into the world to do good. In practical terms, that could mean charity or volunteerism; it could man adopting orphans from a third-world country or donating from our abundance to fight the AIDS crisis in Africa; it could mean political action to achieve justice for migrant workers in Bangladesh or boycotts of stores that sell clothing made in sweatshops.
But whatever we choose, it does require a new consciousness. We are not, as human beings, naturally responsible. As faith traditions from Buddhism to Islam to Christianity remind us, a compassion for others must constantly be cultivated, because the consequences are so serious. In one of his sermons, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Much of evil which we experience is cause by man's folly and ignorance and so by the misuse of his freedom.'
We have the power to make the world better, we have the power to make it worse.
And because we have power, we have great responsibility."
-Greg Garrett
Why did I type all that?
I was talking today, and realized something. I think somewhere deep down I've always had this belief, I guess I just never could put it into words until now. Self-sacrifice is the most important thing you can do for yourself or anyone.
Not necessarily having to sacrifice yourself, but offering yourself up onto the table and be willing to be sacrificed. If you're not willing to let yourself be hurt, you will never be happy. The more of a chance you take, the greater your reward will be. It's almost a question of faith. You have to have the faith that the chance to be truly happy is so much greater then the chance is that you will be hurt.
And the quote, "The past repeats itself" is a bunch of crap. The past cannot repeat itself, it's impossible. What has happened in the past...is the past. What happens in the future has yet to be determined. We have this instinctual idea that past experiences denotes what will happen in future experiences. Each and every experience that we have is completely unique unto itself and itself alone. Trying to gauge what will happen is tentative at best, there is no certainty to what will happen, so why even try to assume how something will turn out?
If I drop a ball 100 times, there's a good chance that it'll hit the ground all 100 times. But I will still do it, hoping someone will catch it on the way down and surprise me.