Duty and Disgust

The pain of others creates a reason for me to help them.

— John Searle

Please give now to Save the Children's Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund.

You have a duty as a human being to do so and it's a positive way to express personal disgust with Putin.

I said only yesterday that the proper response to the war news was to affirm your love for another.

I forgot for a moment there are Ukrainians suffering at Putin's hands—and that we can do something concrete about it.

Your gift to Save the Children's Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund represents real altruism, an act that is dutiful and grounded on both reason and empathy.

So please give—you can pat yourself on the back for your reason and empathy.

There's not a shred of those in the unhinged KGB agent.

Not a shred.

Above: A child enroute to the Slovak Republic two days ago. Photo by Daniel Leal.

Note: Friends ask, with so many charities requesting my money, which should I pick? Save the Children has a proven track record of financial probity, spending 86 cents of every dollar on services to kids.

Freedom

I am my liberty.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Surrounded 24/7 by unapologetic victims, it's easy for us to forget that freedom is everyone's birthright.

For celebrants, Christmas is the season of charity and compassion—or ought to be.

But both virtues assume victims require our philanthropic gestures, when, in fact, they're free: free to resist injustice; free to work for change; free to run away; free to cheat, rob and steal, if need be; free to rebel; free to displace you, or me, or whoever oppresses them.

Journalists, priests and fundraisers prey upon our compassion at Christmas, just as retailers prey upon our guilt and greed.

They can't help themselves.

But no one preys upon our connate freedom.

It takes an Existentialist to do that; to remind us we're born free and remain free every moment of our lives; to remind us no one is born a victim—or even becomes one unwillingly. 

We choose the mantles we wear.

"Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings," the guru Ram Dass said.

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you," the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said.

Remember compassion this Christmas; but remember freedom, too.  

The Tent Angel

Navigating the streets of downtown Washington, DC, you might think the Boy Scout Jamboree is in town.

But the hundreds of tents pitched on every square inch of public land house the homeless, pushed out of shelters by Covid-19.

They're the work of one man, nicknamed "The Tent Angel."

Arnold Harvey is a 58-year-old veteran who grew up dirt poor. He promised God that, if his life ever improved, he’d help others.

His life did improve. Today he's a trash truck driver with a pretty home in the Maryland suburbs.

As he makes his nightly rounds of DC in his trash truck, Harvey drops off new camping gear whenever he spots a homeless person.

He started a tiny nonprofit called "God’s Connection Transition" a decade ago, to seek in-kind donations, so he's learned how to acquire things. 

When the pandemic hit in March, Harvey went to his local Costco and struck a deal: he'd take all the tents shoppers returned opened.

Now he delivers them in the dark to DC's homeless.

“When we get someone a tent, everything gets better,” Harvey told The Washington Post.

Suddenly homeless people are visible, and other angels come to their aid.

“I guess people don’t always see them sleeping in the grass,” Harvey said. “But you can’t ignore a tent."