The universe leans toward helping. The sun helps Earth but that help appears to be random and accidental since planets at different distances are either too cold or too hot for life. Plants and living creatures appear to help each other but it appears to be evolutionary adaptation. Only with humans, particularly after the advent of language, do we see the broad development of intentional helping. The religions and governments of the world are rooted in the intentional helping process. The movement to Be God’s Helper is trying to sensitize and expand that process. The criteria of success is the degree to which the person being helped, the helpee, is really being helped. Although the helpee is usually the best judge of the degree of being helped, the complexity of human interaction may need to expand the helping judgment to include expert witnesses and research. If helping actions are 55% of the priorities for individuals and helping communities, we all have more in common than what separates us. Whether the explanation of your God is in a second universe, or is the best of this universe, or is better described as Earth, we can be united by our helping actions. Be God’s/Earth’s helper has the power to unite the helping forces on earth rather than divide them. But some will say isn’t it better to unite around love and compassion. These are emotions of the helper and don’t by definition include the effect on the helpee. When we go to measure the effectiveness of love, we ask whether it was helpful. If you were dying from hunger, would you prefer someone who loved you and didn’t help you or someone who helped you but didn’t love you?
David, the more I get to know you, the more I appreciate your focus on helping. I spent a great deal of time believing against all hope that unity could be found in diversity, as evidenced in my little religious world in my little church. I sense that you also long to see humanity finding and emphasizing its common ground.
I'm writing to answer your rhetorical question: Would I rather have someone help me who doesn't love me or vice versa? I've actually come to believe that the help is, in and of itself, love -- whether intentional or not. I'm not sure I'm completely on target, but that's how I've come to see love. However, I do tend to give a lot of leeway. If someone is doing something that distresses me, but I know that they are intending it for my good, I can find ways for it to help me.
Oh, dear...I'm rambling...did that make any sense to anyone?
Happy Friday! (You can all be happy with/for me. My mouth is a great deal better from last Thursday's surgery. I can talk *and* eat asparagus!)
To say that all helping is love by definition is an interesting concept. If love and help are actually synonyms, then my question is a false dichotomy. I like the way you try to use the good intentions of others that are not helpful to contribute to something that is helpful for you. Helping it seems to me has to do with the actions I take that either help or harm others. Loving is more the emotion I feel when I am taking an action. I think each event of our life is made up of an action (inaction is an action) and a feeling (lack of feeling is a feeling). So the action or behavioral part can be anywhere on a continuum from helping to harming. The feeling or emotional part can be anywhere on a continuum from loving to hating. The two need not always match. A loving feeling could be integrated with a harmful act and a hateful feeling could be integrated with a helpful act. The Be God's Helper (Be Earth's Helper) goal would be maximum helping and maximum loving for each event of our lives.
