Christmas shoe boxes

[gleeber]

This thread concerns the front page headline from Caithness.org yesterday. It's about ordinary people taking a shoe box full of goodies to their local church to be delivered to underprivelaged children in Eastern Europe. The charity sends some Christian literature along with the boxes in the hope that people will become more aquaint with the goodness of Jesus.
Personally I have no problem with that. Organised religion is something that millions of people accept unconditionally as a part of their lives whether they believe the bible story or not. Billy Grahams son who is a mouthpiece for this charity has, I am sure, the very best of intentions in his endeavors to help the needy.
He also believes in another reality, where spiritual battles between good and evil take place on a daily basis, unseen by the human eye but very much an influence on everyday life and the habits of the human race. His reality is the essence of life on earth and permeates all things whether physical or mental. I know many people who believe the same thing and most of them are just like myself. Ordinary people making sense of their existance.
It's important for them to reinforce their faith by helping others to see the truth. I have the same condition when I challenge their beliefs with my own ideas about life on earth, but I dont go around in my spare time collecting shoeboxes full of goodies for underprivelaged children.
Respect.

[j4bberw0ck]

I was privileged to help in a small way to try to improve the lot of some children who live in an area affected by the Chernobyl disaster. The children are affected too; the radioactive byproducts are in the food chain. Offhand, I'd say it's most important that kids, deprived on a scale most of us can't even begin to understand, get the toys, the clothes, the goodies - with or without Christian literature. To stand on a principle about not giving if it's a Christian charity is to miss the point, utterly.

The Chernobyl kids were wonderful, a delight to be around. No grasping, no wanting everything in sight, no trying to be coo-ell. Just kids. I wasn't the only one to get a piece of dust in my eye from time to time...... inconvenient when that happens, eh? ;)