We Have to Help

When Anne Lamott talked about how her passion for politics formed, she took us all the way back to her childhood. She said she would see pictures in National Geographic or read somewhere about starvation, injustice and poverty and just weep. Her compassion for suffering ran deep, but wasn't respected or affirmed in her family.

Instead of commending her honest and heartfelt response, her parents would shake their heads. "Oh, no! What now?" Or she would be sitting quietly pondering these enormous world issues and someone would come up and say, "Don't you have any homework to do?"

I mentioned that she read to us from the commencement address she delivered to graduating seniors at UCLA at Berkeley in 2003. One section stood out to me, especially in light of this wonderful explanation of how she developed this lifelong commitment to helping and sharing out of her weakness.

As you read this, please keep in mind she was speaking to secular students at a liberal west coast university three years before this recent election:

"If you find out next week that you are terminally ill -- and we're all terminally ill on this bus -- all that will matter is memories of beauty, that people loved you, and you loved them, and that you tried to help the poor and innocent.

"So how do we feed and nourish our spirit, and the spirit of others?

"First, find a path, and a little light to see by. Every single spiritual tradition says the same three things: 1) Live in the now, as often as you can, a breath here, a moment there. 2) You reap exactly what you sow. 3) You must take care of the poor, or you are so doomed that we can't help you.

"You don't have to go overseas. There are people right here who are poor in spirit; worried, depressed, dancing as fast as they can, whose kids are sick, or whose retirement savings are gone. There is great loneliness among us, life-threatening loneliness. People have given up on peace, on equality. They've even given up on the Democratic Party, which I haven't, not by a long shot. You do what you can, what good people have always done: You bring thirsty people water; you share your food, you try to help the homeless find shelter, you stand up for the underdog."

Her passion to love, to help and to remind us to see other people in their real condition -- and to love and accept them -- touches me. It humbles me.

Last night I was doubly humbled (is that possible? If it is, I was) because while listening to Anne's own story, I thought about the two friends who came with me. I was sitting next to two women who volunteer with an inner-city Christian organization that hosts a weekly girls' club. What's more, one of the two women is leaving in early 2007 to serve with a mission in Bolivia for four months. They also both work in public schools because they share Anne Lamott's passion to help and make a difference.

And I'm just trying to get a shower installed in my bathroom.

I'm humbled.

At the very least, I'm going to try to be aware if my kids are pondering world poverty and let them alone to think and pray and come up with ways they might help. Homework isn't everything.

In fact, I remember one time when the kids were younger, they turned to a station showing one of those long ads about starving children that ask for donations to the program, like World Vision or Feed the Children. They watched the footage of those little children staring at the camera through eyes rimmed with flies, stomachs distended. A tiny sister cries in her mothers' arms. Three small kids drew buckets of muddy water from their only water supply. My kids were aghast at the long line of patient kids, standing in line for a dollop of rice.

I was in the other room when one of the girls came running to me, holding out a scrap of paper. "Mama! Mama! We have to phone right now. I wrote down the number. It says we have to help the children! It's up to us! We have to help!"

They're right; we do. We have to help the children.

We can always do something, even if it's very small.

I would like to gather some ideas of what families do to try to make a difference in the world--both in big and small ways. Would you post a comment if you know someone or you yourself are doing something tangible to try to make a difference?