madameblogalot

“See-Do”

This was the theme at the camp from which we just returned. The camp was for children who just finished 3rd-6th grades. “See Do” was all about “see the need, do the deed” and is very appropriate for anyone of any age. The kids were taught about how to see the need as well as how to do the deed. All of these lessons were based upon lessons taken from the Bible.

Today as I was reading Les Miserables, I came across a passage that seemed to be following this same theme, and I think it can apply to anyone of any religion.  It is at the moment when Marius is confronted with the destitution of his neighbors.  The passage is rather long, but worth reading.

“Marius almost reproached himself with the fact that he had been so absorbed in his reveries and passion that he had not until now cast a glance upon his neighbors. Paying their rent was a mechanical impulse; everybody would have had that impulse, but he, Marius, should have done better.  What! A mere wall separated him from these abandoned beings, who lived by groping in the night without the pale of the living; he came in contact with them, he was in some sort the last link of the human race which they touched, he heard them live or rather breathe beside him, and he took no notice of them! Every day at every moment, he heard them through the wall, walking, going, coming, talking, and he did not lend his ear! And in these words there were groans, and he did not even listen, his thoughts were elsewhere, upon dreams, upon impossible glimmerings, upon loves in the sky, upon infatuations; and all the while human beings, his brothers in Jesus Christ, his brothers in the people, were suffering death agonies beside him!  Agonizing uselessly. He even caused a portion of their suffering, and aggravated it. For had they had another neighbor, a less chimerical man, it was clear that their poverty would have been noticed, their signals of distress would have been seen,  and long ago perhaps they would have been gathered up and saved! Undoubtedly they seemed depraved, very corrupt, very vile, very hateful, even, but those are rare who fall without becoming degraded; there is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, les miserables; whose fault is it? And then, is it not when the fall is the lowest that charity ought to be greatest?”

See. Do.