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*Jonathan was drunk multiple times before
ever completing elementary school; his father fed him bourbon so Jonathan
would resist less while being sexually molested. On the night his mother was
released from jail, Jonathan eagerly by his father's side to pick her up.
Pulling off a rest stop, his father convinced Jonathan to stay in the car
while he went inside to make a phone call.
He never returned. Jonathan was 8 years old.
Are we less human because we ignore
statistics that tell us 80% of child abuse perpetrators are parents? Of
course not --- but convinced that personally, one person cannot change this,
it makes us all the more determined to give our kids a secure, loving family
life... a life that teaches them the benefits of unconditional giving and
sharing.
There was a time when New York City's
Catholic Church claimed, "the poor belong to us". But over the years, these
downtown parishes with only meager means for assisting the poor, aggravated
the already existing imbalance between Catholic needs and Catholic
resources. Attention soon turned to the wealthy to share this burden.
Philanthropists come from long-established
families of wealth in which donating to charity is an accepted
responsibility, and in 1986 Sallie Bingham wrote: "Most rich women are
invisible; we are the faces that appear behind well-known men, floating up
to the surface infrequently, palely; the big contributors, often anonymous,
to approved charities, or the organizers of fundraising events."
Some time ago I was a foster parent and I am
still a step-parent. So I must take for granted without visual proof the
horror stories that seem to shadow these roles. It's shameful to read that
one out of three homeless adults is a former foster-care child. I want to
object, to criticize the research as based on faulty facts - but no doubt
they'd show me otherwise.
Instead, I turned my indignation into a
course of action each one of us can adopt. What hits your soft spot? Abused
children, minority education, battered women, drug rehabilitation, food
banks, homeless or lost children, seeing-eye dogs, free clinics, organ
donors, habitat, teen runaways --- there are numerous tragedies to choose
from. Not any have to interrupt your family life as you do one small part to
make a difference.
Certainly like most, my income never
stretches as far as I could hope for. There is always so much more that I
could do --- if only! So I made an open-minded search for my answer and came
up with a miracle. This would give me plenty of funds and actually went
beyond what most people can even dream about. Be assured, it is very real
and it can be yours if you decide to embrace the spirit of caring and
sharing.
[*Jonathan is a resident of My Friend's
Place, located in Los Angeles. They open their doors to some 5000 homeless
youth that would otherwise die this year from illness. suicide and/or
assault.]
© 2005 Esther Smith
About
the Author: Smith has published numerous articles and writes a blog for
all artists:
http://the-self-taught-artist.com/blog.html
She also coaches new students on how to leave the time-for-money trap and set up
Leveraged Income for life.
http://thepermanentventure.com/dcc.htm If you can’t sing or ride a
bull, you better learn how to make your money work for more money. |