This is not an Audrey Hepburn movie
I'm not a big fan of tying religion in with natural compassion, but human kindness is something I've always admired greatly. I also believe there are plenty of kind people in the world!
That's pretty much how I feel about it, in a nutshell. But here's my clumsy, long-winded way of saying it.
Perfection is in intentions, and I'll grant that to the quoted lady...
but I think that sounding like she takes herself for the second coming sort of takes the
human kindness element out of it.
I wouldn't mind - nay, I would applaud her discourse if believers acknowledged the human side of grace. (Of course that's just my biased opinion. To me, it's squarely the human
nature of grace. I just want to give human beings a little credit and responsibility.)
Or if she wasn't advertising her own story every chance she gets, not to mention with a bit of drama. "I
slowly nodded." Please! To quote the least.
Of course she'd want to propagate that generous feeling of unconditional acceptance, I get that. I wish luck to the endeavour. But there's way and way of doing it. This tale sounds a bit too much like self-glorification (if only collateral benefit). Anybody seen Douglas Sirk's 'Magnificent Obsession'? I know, Sirk is preachy too, but that one's about not taking credit for acts of kindness.
And... perhaps someone should tell that lady never to give money to a person begging for baby formula... Although if she's real (which her husband's line of dialogue makes hard to believe for me), she'd probably go to the store, buy the baby formula and a pack of diapers!
Hey, I have a particular fondness for suckers.
I can relate.
That's a well know internet chain letter - I had to blacklist my own sister because she kept sending me that sort of crap.
Hm, I had a friend like that.
Darn, I knew I should have read that thread in the proper order!
When I read that text, I skipped to the end looking for a request to send it to 20 people. Not seeing it, I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
That lady sort of exists, though. The debate is valid, I suppose.
I was going to add to my post, what disturbs me a little is that generosity so often comes with faith. Sort of gives us heathens a bad consience. I console myself in thinking that the most generous two people I've known were my maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather. The former was very pious, the latter was very atheistic. Both systems work.
And they were both suckers sometimes. It comes with being generous.
