“Cast The First Stone”

Brian Lynch

Whenever I write I wish not to be “pointing the finger at others”, although it is natural to first see “wrong” in others first, but very often I will write something and then be so surprised to be thinking about what I wrote and find that I remember doing a similar thing to someone just recently.

Today, I am thinking about stories I have heard and experiences I have heard concerning people that just seem to be unable to, well, share very much.

In extreme form, it might be that you could not expect them to walk across the room and get you a glass of water.

People who might live with you a week and maybe, just maybe, wash the dish from which they ate. Otherwise, they feel that they need every last cent that they have as “who knows what might happen tomorrow?”

People, who know all about a given profession, are professional and yet after 20 years and claim you as their “best” friend, but I bet you, you have not gotten one bit of “free” advice from them. You might be “picking” their brain! Yet you have freely given of your knowledge as you see this as part and parcel of “friendship”, of sharing. One of the best examples and “proofs” of this is email. Think of all the caring emails you have sent out without one response.

Over and over you hear, “I’d love to help you out” with this or that. “I know how to do this or that.” “You really should get this organized.”, etc. But nothing comes of it.

A relative is full of advice. You’re desperate for tuition money but you just hear criticism. Had you done this or that? They are going to give all their savings to the poor in India when they die. That is the only solution they can see. “Otherwise' people just hurt you?”

So why are “we” like this so much of the time? Well, the last statement says it all. “Otherwise, people just hurt you?” So it is with, for example, email. It is so often that it is not the case that communication is not appreciated. Quite the contrary. Tt is much appreciated, but people cannot let on that they appreciate it.

If we are not creating the good times now, today, then we are not creating them, we are living in fear of some unknown future. Why is it that we are not creating the good times today? It must only be because we have learned to be cautious. A little logic must tell us that there should be a balance to this but then who is to tell us what that balance is? Where do we go to find out?

If we have been severely abused how do we even know we have been severely abused and that we are “over reacting?” How do we know that we should be more giving and if we were more giving we would be better off? The truth is those that don’t know and are not “evil”, “mean” or “doing it on purpose” just do not know. Those that can give in the moment and experience the “interest” and the resulting “joy” of giving and hopefully of receiving only know it through doing. The receiving part is very important because the downside is that is almost as dangerous and “sick” is to give and give without receiving as to not give.

Copyright 2010