SCHOLAR ISLAND
CHARITY
"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
(I Cor. XIII,13)
"Charity that is concealed appeaseth the wrath of God."
Muhammad (Sayings of Muhammad)
"Works of charity negligently performed are of no worth."
-Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
"Be charitable before wealth makes thee covetous."
-Sir Thomas Browne
"Doing justice between two people is charity; and assisting a man upon his beast, and lifting his baggage, is charity; and pure, comforting words are charity; and answering a questioner with mildness, is charity; and removing that which is an inconvenience to wayfarers, such as thorns and stones, is charity."
Muhammad (Sayings of Muhammad)
"The most excellent of alms is that of a man of small property, which he has earned by labour, and from which he giveth as much as he is able."
Muhammed (The Sayings of Muhammed)
"How is it at all possible that this culture-loving era could be so monstrously amoral? More and more I come to value charity and love of one’s fellow beings above everything else….All our lauded technological progress-our very civilization-is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal."
Einstein (Dec 6 1917)
"Man, what a bunch of selfish bastards we are. Gold hoarding abounds. Tea parties rage. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's gospel of self-interest, is outselling The Audacity of Hope on Amazon.com. And trust in the institutions we've traditionally relied upon to encourage/enforce philanthropy and its evil twin, redistribution-government, nonprofits, and the church-appears to be at a historic low. What's more, a recent Pew Research Center poll found that Millennials (the 18 to 29 set, whose lives have been entirely molded by information technology) are perhaps the least religious generation on record, with 26 percent reporting no church affiliation whatsoever....."
article from Wired Magazine "Instant Karma" by Scott Brown
"Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity."
-Albert Camus
"Big giving’s; influence upon social conduct is far more subtle than most people realize. The basic menace of foundations is not their size, although size aggravates the menace. Nor is it the lust of power and fallibility of foundation agents. The basic menace is the attitude of the rest of us towards foundations which are created to give away money. We want some of the money, we want some of the power which the money gives. We want the smiles and favors of agents controlling such huge power to help or withhold help. It is what we are willing to do for foundation money not what foundations want or ask us to do that makes foundation giving a social and governmental menace."
William Harvey Allen (1930)
"This is how the game works: public money levied in taxes from the poor of the rich countries is transferred in the form of ‘Foreign Aid’ to the rich in the poor countries; the rich in the poor countries then hand it back for safe-keeping to the rich in the rich countries. The real trick, throughout this cycle of expropriation, is to maintain the pretence that it is the poor in poor countries who are being helped all along. The winner is the player who manages to keep a straight face while building up a billion-dollar bank account."
Graham Hancock
Lords of Poverty
"We are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring."
-Martin Luther King Jr.
"Thus like Siamese Twins joined at the hip, aid bureaucrats and their limousines are never far apart. Indeed, pomp and ceremony of just every possible kind, gourmet dinners, and five-star hotels are integral components of the day-to-day existence of these employed by international organizations to solve the problems of global poverty. Whether they are from the United Nations Development Programme, or from the World Bank, few of the officials concerned see their costly addiction to the trappings of status and wealth as indications of deeply ingrained hypocrisy; rather, they take their privileged lifestyles for granted as inalienable rights, as self-evidently legitimate rewards for the ‘great sacrifices they somehow believe they are making."
Graham Hancock
Lords of Poverty
"Whatever ye shall give in alms, as seeking the face of God, shall be doubled to you."
Koran
"To be charitable in public is good, but to give alms to the poor in private is better and will atone for some of your sins. God has knowledge of all your actions."
Al Koran
"Chuck Feeney has spent much of the past-quarter-century trying to erase his enormous wealth. He has neither a house nor a car. He wears a$15 plastic watch, buys suits off the rack, and wonders sometimes if he really needs more than one pair of shoes. In 1988, when Forbes Magazine named him the 23rd richest man in America, the news shocked many of his old friends from working-class Elizabeth, N.J. Up to a point, though, the magazine had its facts right. What reporters didn't know was that, six years earlier, Feeney had begun transferring much of his wealth to charitable trusts based in Bermuda. He was already on the road to giving it all away.
Feeney, now 76, has been nearly as secretive about his philanthropy as he was about his status as a billionaire, said Michelle Conlin in BusinessWeek. For decades, he made most of his donations anonymously. But he agreed to a biography when he realized his story was leaking out, , and Conor O'Clery's :superbly written page-turner is the result. Feeney, ...."
Conor O'Clery
The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How Chuck Feeney Secretly made and Gave Away a Fortune from The Week magazine Oct12,2007
Give it to soup lines
If I see someone who needs some
Here’s hundred. Here’s fifty.
Soup vendor. Wino. Old woman with varicose veins.
Good deeds. Judgment,
I’m well pleased with you my son. Come into heaven.
That’s eternal life. Maan! Maaan!
Look at all the buildings in downtown New York.
People built them. They’re dead
Buildings still standing.
You don’t own nothing;. Just a trustee.
This life’s a test. A test.
Trying to pass the test. I’m trying;.
Warm bodies. Shake hands. Gone.
All dead now. President Kennedy.
Whatever color you are
No matter how much money you have
Politics. Sports. You’re gonna die. Sleep is the brother of death."Mohammed Ali
Eight Degrees in the Giving of Charity
From the Teachings of Maimonides
The highest degree: Take hold of a Jew who has been crushed and give him a gift or a loan, or enter into partnership with him, or find work for him, and thus put him on his feet that he will not be dependent on his fellow-men.
Lower in degree to this is the one who gives charity, zedaka, to the poor, but does not know to whom he gives it, nor does the poor man know from whom he received it.
Lower in degree: The giver knows to whom he gives but the poor does not know from whom he receives.
Lower in degree: When the poor knows from whom he receives., but the giver does not know to whom he gives.
Lower in degree: When one gives even before he is asked.
Lower in degree: When one gives less than he should but graciously.
Lower in degree: When one gives grudgingly."(The Jew in the Medieval World) trans.Jacob R. Marcus Matnot Aniyim
...Rachel is a high school junior in Harrison, N.Y., who came down with a painful intestinal ailment that forced her to miss the entire 2006-7 school year. So she resolved that if she couldn't go to school herself, she could at least help other kids who wanted to.
From her sickbed, Rachel sold T-shirts and solicited contributions to build a 316-student elementary school in rural Cambodia. Borrowing an idea from university fund-raising, she offered naming opportunities: for $25 donors could buy chairs to be named for them. All told, she raised $57,000, which was channeled through an aid group, American Assistance for Cambodia...."
See Article in New York Times May 11,2008 Saving the World in Study Hall by Nicholas D. Kristof
"True Compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar....it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs changing."
-martin Luther King
See Article" When Needs Hit Home: A Debate Over Helping" The New York Times Nov 2, 2011
"As overall giving rises, gifts for basic human needs fall."
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see: New York Times May 11,2008 article: Saving the World in Study Hall by Nicholas D. Kristof (about Teenagers involved in initiating and managing charity operations)
see www.aglimmerofhope.org This charity set up by Phillip R. Berber and his wife Donna is a new and better philanthropy.
Book: "For a Good Cause?" by John Hawks
Book: "A Bed For The Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis" by David Rieff
Book: "The Transformation of Charity in Post revolutionary New England" by Conrad Edick Wright
BoardnetUSA.org
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