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“I pray to go out of my way to bring happiness.”
Posted by Kimberly Allen
As described in a post earlier this week,
St. Paul's parishioner Buford Scott was honored with a Lifetime
Achievement in Philanthropy award on Wednesday. Buford's remarks about
generosity touched many of you who were present.
Click here to watch the video about Buford (with photos of St. Paul's!), which aired during the luncheon on Wednesday.
Also, below is the full text of Buford's inspired remarks.
National Philanthropy Day
Lifetime Achievement in Philanthropy - S. Buford Scott
November 18, 2009
When I pray at night, I ask that I may find some way to go out of my way, each day, to bring some happiness to the lives of others.
The key phrase is: "go out of my way".
Those opportunities may not come every day, but when they do, I try to seize them.
I like the words of a noted French philosopher: "I expect to pass through this world but once. Anything good, therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now, let me not defer or neglect it. For I shall not pass this way again."
What is the essence of life?
My answer is LOVE, no matter where you live in the World.
When we are born, we are immersed in LOVE.
As we grow, if we are lucky, we are surrounded by LOVE.
The concept of LOVE is rooted in all religions.
I am most familiar with Christianity, where the Golden Rule is to love the Lord and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
My second essence of life is giving.
My father said that the greatest gift that parents can give their children the joy of sharing.
I am excited by the concept of giving expressed in the great Lloyd Douglas book, The Magnificent Obsession, that when we help someone, we only ask to be repaid by that someone helping another person when the opportunity comes along. Douglas suggests that one act of kindness can be multiplied many times.
The Sea of Galilee receives water from many streams, and returns that water to the Jordan River. The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by fertile and productive lands.
The Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea, which keeps all the water it receives, sharing none of it. The land around the Dead Sea is arid and barren and produces nothing.
May each of us learn to share, like the Sea of Galilee, and produce life, rather than be like the Dead Sea, and produce nothing.
My third and final essence of life is to be productive.
I love Rudyard Kipling's poem called "If", which ends: "If you can fill each unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run, yours is the world and everything that's in it, and what is more, you'll be a man, my son".
In the 1970's our rector at St. Paul's was the Rev. (and later) Bishop John Shelby Spong.
Jack shared his studies of the bible with his congregation in what he called his bible class.
One morning he said the only true sin was to fail to live up to what you are capable of becoming.
I asked how you know what you are capable of becoming, and he said "stretch yourself every day to become more capable than you were the day before". As I have seen Jack many times since then, I told him that I believed him, and that he ruined my life.
So here I am, at age 76, stretching myself to become more capable than I was yesterday.
How long can this go on? Where will it lead? What fun!
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