TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Charities Need Support Before The Holidays

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 14, 2007

Take a long, deep breath. Brace yourself. You know what is coming.

Some of us may be fighting the inevitable as hard as we can, but we can't shut out the growing sound, the distant rumble, the imminent freight train that is the 2007 "holiday season," picking up momentum as it rounds the final turn.

So let's stop - right now.

I want each of us to get our thinking, our values and our spiritual sensitivities lined up and focused.

About the middle of December, frenzied "last-minute" pleas are going to start rolling in from area charities: News releases will say, "The need is just too great." "Giving is not keeping up with demand." "The economy is sluggish this year, and helping agencies are taking a hit."

Here's an alternative: Why wait? What do you say we write those checks early?

Wouldn't it be nice if, come Dec. 1, Tampa's charitable organizations were flush with money and bursting with volunteers? What if Tampa finds itself in a position to help St. Petersburg, Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville or some other city hurting for help?

Here's a thought: What if, every time we feel ourselves tempted to send a contribution to the self-promotional circus that presidential primary politics has become, we're moved to give twice that amount to an organization that keeps its promises?

And let's not be jaded by the latest round of finger-pointing and the futile quest for explanations regarding the excess of superstar televangelists. Down at The Salvation Army, there's no one on staff driving a Bentley; over at Metropolitan Ministries, the administrator isn't siphoning off donations to pay for a vacation home in Maui; the director at Beth-El Farm Worker Ministries doesn't shop at Brooks Brothers; and the Judeo-Christian Health Clinic doesn't own a private jet.

Without Walls megachurch board member Alick Clark offered the following wisdom in a Nov. 7 Tampa Tribune story: "How many of these guys would be in ministry if there was no money in it? Not many, I can tell you."

Well, I'll go out on a limb and opine that the ministry model Jesus lived plays out a little differently. The folks feeding Tampa's homeless want nothing to do with your money other than to use it to help those in need. The same goes for Brandon's Emergency Care and Help Organization, Meals on Wheels, the Child Abuse Council, The Spring and countless other worthy causes.

We live, so many of us, at a level of luxury unimagined by 80 percent of the world's population. A typical household in the Tampa area wastes more in a week than many families hope for in a month.

Yet the coming six weeks will see us strain to ratchet up our consumption, lest we - God forbid - miss out on a treat or a trinket dangled near our reach. And it's all - we strain just as hard to convince ourselves - in response to our insistence that the celebration is all about God.

The prophet Amos lived and ranted in Israel about 760 B.C. The pundit's words could well have been written for our world of religious hypocrisy and conspicuous excess:

"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. ... I will not accept them. ... I have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:21-24)

Justice and righteousness? Those concepts are addressed with passion and love at Metropolitan Ministries, at Beth-El and via every delivery made by volunteers with Meals on Wheels.

If we start early and if we listen to the words of the prophet, I can guarantee a holiday season filled with grace and peace the likes of which this city has never known.

Columnist Derek Maul can be reached at derekmaul@gmail .com.

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT