A Penny For My Thoughts...

I walk into my building the other day and the RA's are hosting a "penny war". A penny war is apparently the same thing as a coin drive (also known as begging). So, I do what I always do when confronted with a bum or vagabond on the street... I set my gaze straight ahead, clench my jaw, quicken my pace, and hope that they are good at reading body language.

"Do you have any spare change to donate to *insert charitable organization here*?"

Damn, so close, My key was in my hand and almost in the door.

Now I don't want you to misunderstand me, I think that is a good and necessary thing to support charities, but I don't see how begging for the .67 cents that I have in my pocket is really going to make the difference in St. Jude's research budget I would much prefer to support the charity directly. I do like how the Ronald McDonald House Charity works, they are usually un-invasive, they just have their collection boxes set up near the registers and drive-through's to that you can, if you choose, deposit your change from breaking a 20.

Now you are going to say "Kyle the two are no different blah blah blah..." to you I say, pish. McDonald's is not accosting me and literally begging for my money like a common bum in the B2 lot. But, I have digressed from the main point of my story... actually I haven't even gotten to it yet. Perhaps some other time I will talk about my views on charities.

She asks me for change and I dig in my pockets, and much to my chagrin I pull out a couple of quarters, nickles and pennies which I had picked up off of the ground earlier that day. I toss them in the Ziploc Tupperware thing that they have set up on the table with a thin smile (giving cheerfully is not as easy as it sounds). As I start to turn to walk away, she says to me, "now you have good karma points, don't use them all at once."

Karma Points, really?! Oh boy, I must really be a good person, I grudgingly gave 67 cents to a charity I don't care about! That has to be equal to the inverse of kicking a box of puppies!

The rule of karma is something like "Do Good things and Good things will happen to you, do bad things and bad things will happen to you." but let me ask a simple question: isn't that a selfish reason to do good things, or not to do bad things? And isn't selfishness a bad thing? so it would logically follow that someone who does good things to get "good karma" is in fact causing his karma to be worse. The way I see it, someone who acts solely out of self interest, so that others will think better of him, and so that some mystical force will heap good luck on him is really not a good person at all, in fact he is probably the biggest jerkface around.


It seems silly to me to think that two random circumstances in a persons life are somehow related - cause and effect style - through the apparatus of Karma. I help an old lady across the street, a week later I find a quarter on the ground. Karma? Coincidence? It seems far more likely that the Karmic result of me approaching an elderly lady to help her cross the street would be a beating with a purse if I'm lucky, and pepper spray in my face if I'm attempting this in Greenville. As for the Quarter, well, I look for change on the ground all the time, the only reason I find it is because someone else dropped it, and didn't pick it up. Karma had nothing to do with it. besides, some might even go so far as to say that picking money up off the pavement is dishonest, because that money never belonged to you, you should therefore turn it in to the authorities, regardless of the amount. so picking up the change off the sidewalk, you would actually be causing yourself "bad karma" because you are stealing and being dishonest. finding money = bad karma... are you starting to see my point.


And what about the whole "no good deed goes unpunished" thing, how many times have you done something good and gotten a whole mess of trouble for it. Again I ask Karma? Not likely. Take last night for example; a friend calls me around 11:00pm. She is at the Commons, a park by the River, she had been running there earlier that night when she lost her keys. She needs to break into her car to get her stuff out for her work today, and wants to know if I can help her break into her car. I did what I could, took her to Wal-Mart, helped use toasting forks to break in... that didn't work. So we go looking for the keys, 45ish minutes later I find the keys and we all go home... I get back round 1am-ish. I set my alarm, and go to bed. I wake up at 8:59, my alarm did not go off, I have class @ 9. I am not blaming my friend by any means, that would be retarded, it is not her fault. According to the laws of karma, However, I should not have missed class for doing a "good deed" according to the laws of nature on the other hand, I needed the sleep class or no class. Karma doesn't enter into it.


You have probably heard the "Golden Rule" which goes something like "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you." many people will say, "that is karma, you do good things to/for people, they'll do good things for you." Bull Shit! that is not what that means at all. this old adage is actually a bible verse *gasp* and actually says (NIV) Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. I personally like the way The Message translation puts it: Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God's Law and Prophets and this is what you get. The "saying" doesn't mean "I scratch your back, you scratch mine", it means that you should always, in every situation, treat people with respect and kindness and love... in short the way you would like to be treated by others regardless of how anyone treats you.

You have probably also heard the cliche "Do not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good" that one can actually be found in Romans 12. It goes on to say that in doing so, you will "heap burning coals on his head." this means that in treating those who treat us badly with love and kindness we cause them pain. think of it like this, have you ever treated some one badly just to get a funny reaction from them (Be honest. I've done it. It is OK, we all do.)... but then they didn't react the way you expected, they react with kindness, or didn't really respond at all. Did you feel hurt or embarrassed? Did you lose a bit of pride? I did, and that is what this is talking about.

I am not a good person, this I know is true for many reasons, but lets start with the Bible.

Romans 3:10-12

10The holy writings say, `No one is good. No, not one person.
11No one is wise. No one wants to know God.
12They all have turned away from the straight road. Together they have gone the wrong way. No one does good, not even one person!

This is not a particularly uplifting scripture, especially when lifted out of it's context, but what it says is true at face value. there are many other scriptures that deal with the not goodness of man such as Romans 3:23, and there are many more that deal with Gods forgiveness, but that too is not what this is about.

People are basically bad, and nothing they do is ever really good. that is the exact reason why we cannot got to heaven through any work of our own, and why Jesus had to die a horrible, painful death to pay the price for our sins (if this doesn't make sense to you, you should take a look at Jewish sacrificial customs... or just ask me, and I'd be happy to further explain). Sure we do good things from time to time, then we feel good about ourselves because of all the altruistic things we have done, you know what that is, it's pride, which is bad. I am not saying that you should not feel good about yourself when you do good thing, you should, but don't kidd yourself into thinking you are any better that anyone else just because you tipped well to a person who didn't give you particularly excellent service. No matter how much good you do, you can never do enough good to outweigh your bad... your sin. Isaiah 64:6 says; For we have all become like one who is unclean [ceremonially, like a leper], and all our righteousness (our best deeds of rightness and justice) is like filthy rags or a polluted garment. That is why Karma doesn't work.



This one went on a bit, I'll try to keep them shorter from now on.