Author: Susan Schulte

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

This quotation is attributed to Anne Frank, who, along with her family and others, needed to go into hiding during World War II because they were Jewish and Hitler’s Nazis were imprisoning Jewish people.  After being in hiding from 1942-1944, they were discovered and transported to concentration camps.  Anne was only 15 years old when she became ill and died.  Her father was the only one in her family who survived, and when he returned to where they had lived, he discovered her diary.  Through his endeavors, Anne’s diary was published with the title The Diary of a Young Girl.  In reading it, I’ve been impressed by the wisdom Anne possessed at such a young age.

Anne’s statement “No one has ever become poor by giving” brings to mind the many ways that we can give.

We can be generous with our time by, when we’re with our children or grandchildren, giving them our undivided attention; by being there for our spouse or partner when she or he needs us; by visiting and calling elderly people who can no longer drive and who spend a lot of time alone; and by volunteering to help with causes that we believe matter.

We can be generous with the abilities we’ve been given by volunteering in programs to tutor children, by teaching English to people who have come to our country from other countries, or by teaching other types of skills at which we’ve become proficient.

We can be generous with the money we’ve been given by donating to nonprofit and charitable organizations to help them continue operating and working toward their goals of improving people’s lives.  We can also be generous with the money we’ve been given by donating to arts organizations to enable dance, music, theater, the visual arts, and other art forms to thrive and to be available to others to enjoy.

When I write the words “abilities we’ve been given” and “money we’ve been given,” I do so as a reminder that everything we have has been given to us by the Creator.  It’s important that all of us who have been blessed with talents, intelligence, good health, and/or loving relationships keep in mind the source of those blessings.  By giving in any of the ways I’ve listed or in other ways, we help to improve the quality of life for others.  By being generous, not only do we not “become poor by giving,” but the opposite happens:  by giving, our lives are enriched.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”

This is a quote by the Dalai Lama.  He often speaks and writes about compassion, emphasizing the importance of having this quality when we interact with others and also in how we think about other people, including people of other ethnicities, races, religious traditions, and cultures than those with which we are familiar.

Thinking about compassion reminds me of the expression “walking in another person’s shoes.”  We become more compassionate when we try to gain a sense of what it might be like to be that other person, to consider that that person has experienced difficulties and has been confronted by challenges we do not know about.  And to remember that some people do not have others in their lives who care about them, that blessing that is so helpful to those of us who do.

In my work as a crisis line counselor, I try to be compassionate.  I remind myself that, no matter how much the person who calls shares with me, there is still so much about her or him I do not know.  This helps me not only to have compassion but also to refrain from making assumptions about the person.  Too often people make judgments about others based on their perceptions of them, and those perceptions are based on limited knowledge about the life experiences of the people they are judging.  Related to this, we need to keep in mind the concept of projection and to try to notice whether what we perceive about a person might be us projecting negative aspects of ourselves onto them.  Although projection is an unconscious phenomenon and therefore not something we consciously do, we can be watchful of when it might be happening, especially at those times when we have strong negative feelings about the other person.

In his quote, the Dalai Lama makes an especially strong statement when he says without love and compassion humanity cannot survive.  I think of his words in two ways.  Humanity as a whole would end if love and compassion no longer existed, for those qualities are needed for nurturing, teaching, providing for, creating, healing—all aspects of life that are essential.  His words also cause me to think about how each of us has our individual humanity.  His words are a reminder for us to look into ourselves and contemplate the degree to which we have compassion and love for others.

Humanity is made up of every one of us doing what we can to make our world a better place, each of us trying to grow in the qualities that make life meaningful for ourselves and for others.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”  This quote is by Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish novelist and poet who lived in the nineteenth century.  Two of his best known novels are Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island.

Very often the quotes I choose to write about serve as helpful reminders to me.  This quote is a reminder that the seemingly small things we do each day do matter; they have an effect on people.  And remembering that helps me to remain hopeful.  Sometimes thinking about the things that are wrong in our world can cause us to feel discouraged, making it difficult for us to believe things can improve.  We want so much to see clearly visible positive change.  And when we don’t, it’s easy to fall into the trap of losing hope.  But when we remember that small, incremental change has led to and continues to lead to positive results, we are able to stay hopeful.  The small, incremental changes are seeds that were planted by people through their actions and words.

Through our words and actions, through the choices we make and the way that we live, we “plant seeds” every day.  We plant the seeds of positive change by treating others with respect and compassion, by being fully present with and listening to others, and by expressing appreciation and gratitude.  By reading to children, we plant the seeds of a love of reading that has the potential of benefiting them throughout their lives.  And by doing whatever work we were created to do to the best of our ability, each of us is an example that will help others on their life paths.

I often think of the idea of “planting seeds” in my work as a crisis line counselor.  Unlike a counseling setting where the counselor and the client meet on a regular basis and therefore have the potential of building on what has occurred in each of their previous sessions, listening to and talking with someone who calls a crisis line is a one-time occurrence.  When the person who calls shares with me her or his reason for calling, I try to do what is possible in the moment to assist.  In giving the person my full attention, communicating empathy, and talking with him or her about self-care possibilities to try, I hope that our work together is planting seeds of ideas that will be useful after the call and be another step toward emotional healing.

As I said, Stevenson’s words serve as a helpful reminder to me.  I hope you will find his words to be a helpful reminder to you too.

Christian singer-songwriter Amy Grant has written or co-written many songs over the years.  One song that I especially like is “Thy Word” which she co-wrote with singer-songwriter Michael W. Smith.  The song opens with the words “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”  Those lyrics are also the chorus of the song.

I think of the words “Thy word” as referring to the scriptures and perhaps to other religious writings as well.  Reading and contemplating sacred writings can be personally meaningful and help us as we live each day.  For me, “Thy word” also refers to the messages we discern as we try to listen to our inner voice.  Those messages come to us from the Creator through significant life experiences, intuition, dreams, and synchronicities.

The emphasis on light in the lyrics is also meaningful.  In the song, light is referred to both as “a lamp unto my feet” and “a light unto my path.”  Light helps us to see more clearly, something that is always welcome.  Those times when we are faced with difficulties often feel like times of darkness.  When they have passed, it’s as if we are once again in the light.  The expression “being in the dark” describes times when we don’t understand something or are having trouble figuring out an answer to a problem.  Once we do understand it or figure it out, we’re no longer in the dark.

In dreams, spacious rooms with large windows letting in sunlight can symbolize a healthy ego attitude, which is when our ego decisions and actions align with how our inner voice wants us to live.  When that alignment happens, we grow in consciousness and thus live in a more genuine and centered way.

Other lyrics in the song refer to those times when we feel as though we’ve lost our way or when our hearts wander, but then remembering that our Lord is there beside us and is always ready to be our guide.  It’s important that we remind ourselves of our Creator’s presence, especially during times of darkness.  And then to be thankful for being guided back into the light so that we again are able to see and follow the path we were created to follow.

“Make me an instrument of Your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.”  These words are the first part of the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, an Italian friar and mystic who lived in the thirteenth century, who loved nature and its creatures, and who is considered the patron saint of animals and ecology.

Each phrase of the prayer asks our Creator to help the person who is saying the prayer to assist in whatever way she or he can with the process of transforming something difficult and negative into something healing and positive.  I use the words “process of transforming” because usually it takes time for such changes to happen, which requires patience along with the belief that such transformations can and do happen.

The words of this prayer remind me that, for our own spiritual growth and growth in consciousness, there will be times of questioning and doubt, times of sadness and despair.  But because at other times we have experienced joy, hope, and being loved, and have witnessed or read about those experiences happening for other people, we are able to persevere through the darker times.

The words “make me an instrument of Your peace” are meaningful to me in that they remind me of the many times the Creator has worked through other people to help me on my path:  a therapist I met with when I was going through a difficult period and from whom I learned about dream work and Jungian concepts that have helped me so much; creative and courageous authors of books I have read through which I’ve learned about many aspects of our world, that have added to my consciousness, and that have positively affected my relationships with others; people who have played a role in bringing about unexpected occurrences that have happened just when I needed them most.

The Creator worked through these people. They were the Creator’s instruments.  Each of us can also be the Creator’s instrument in whatever ways we are called on to assist others and to live more productive and meaningful lives.