Working for the Civil Society
Now Playing: Hillel

If I am not for myself,
Who will be for me?
If I am only for myself,
What am I?
And If not now,
When?

I'm pretty exhausted tonight, but wanted to tell you a little bit about what's going on here in Austin with regard to the refugees from New Orleans.

For the past several days, I have trained and served as a volunteer caseworker with a very old and well-respected NGO. I leave work every day at about noon and go down to the Austin Convention Center where I help people obtain the financial and medical help they need to get back on their feet.

I have helped good and grateful people who were raised properly and I have helped weak and ungrateful people who can't look me in the eye as they lie about their situations for the sake of scoring some easy money. I have helped people of many different colors and accents and states of mind. I am interested in their stories and I show them the respect that their dignity requires. It has been a good deed.

I'm telling you all of this because I am usually a very selfish and abstract-minded man who doesn't make the effort he should to help others ---and without passing judgement in the instant where it matters. And I'm saying that Katrina is an unimaginable enormity that has brought out the very best and the very worst in people from all walks of life. This is an historic event that demands that everyone contribute in some way.

I don't know of any other society on Earth that acts for the benefit of common people like ours does. Our Federal government is a mammoth caretaker ---and we take that for granted. But there is another principle at work here, too, and it's called the civil society. That's what exists beyond the reach of government and what inhabits the moral lives of those who choose to demonstrate the Golden Rule and Enlightened Self-Interest. Americans possess a moral certainty that is independent of religious dogma and ideology, even if it is often derived from them. The whole world may be grateful for that.

I have chosen to contribute to the efforts to help the survivors of Katrina because I would want the same help given to me in my own hour of need. I am also working for the civil society because I extol its virtues and want to associate myself with it, ultimately.

The karmic wheel rolls on ---and even over those who do not occupy themselves in contemplating it.