JC's helper: "Godly" spam.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

"Godly" spam.

There is a man around town who is a "greasy kleptomaniac". I have known him for years and when ever he is in my office, car or church I keep an eye on everything he touches. The thing that annoys me about him is that he will keep saying to me in the most earnest tones, "Bless you David." or "David can I have a blessing off you?" and if I do he will say goodbye and back away repeating, "Bless you David. Bless you. God bless ....David." The more he blesses me the more I wonder what he has stolen! Sometimes he will be effusive with his blessings then get to the point... "Can I have a wee bit of money... say $20.... I just need it to.... I'm a bit short because..." I never give him money these days. Now I am used to people trying to bludge money off me, I can say "no" without falling out with the person most often. What annoys me about this guy is that he is using religion "blessing me" just to get material gain. He will bless me with one breath and if he thinks he can get away with it, steal from me in the next. THAT annoys me! Give me a straight up honest bludger any day. Greasy ones, using religion to try to get what they want piss me off... woops sorry "Annoy me". To me it is low. It is using "God", using a man's faith, and using a false "friendship" to get money. Even if we don't believe, I think we should respect the faith of another. (Let me say that down-and-out people are not the only ones doing this. I have seen advertising sales people, insurance agents, car sales people and real estate agents who are just as low and greasy... in my book.)

In line with this I hate spam mail... full stop... but I really hate spam mail that starts, "Dearly beloved in Christ", "Dear Christ's one" or "My dear brother.... I have chosen you because of your love of the Lord..." That to me is low. I can't do anything about it... but let this be my gripe session. They are greasy low people who do these things. I struggle to respect them. They degrade faith, they degrade me, and they degrade God. Most of all, they degrade themselves! (I know some of my readers may say there are plenty of preachers/evangelists who use religion for money grabbing purposes, ... they too are VERY low. ) Enough said... my gripe for the week.

1 comment:

Dave Brown said...: To illustrate my point... two emails I received this morning 5 spam emails. Two of the subject lines read... "Greetings and God Bless you" and "Dear good friend in Christ".; October 21, 2010 at 2:50 PM

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The Blog's title

I am a Workplace Chaplain to the NZ fireservice.

At the firestation every time one man sees me he yells, "Here comes JC's helper!". I guess I am happy to be called just that... "Jesus' helper". I am a follower of Jesus.
A a quote from Dave Andrews in his book, "Not Religion but Love".
"Being a devotee of Jesus is not a matter of subscribing to a certain set of dogmas, obeying rules and regulations, and getting others to subordinate themselves to them.

The essence of being a devotee of Jesus is to live in sympathy with God as Jesus did; feeling the throb of God's heartbeat, and teaching our hearts to learn to beat in sync with the love that sustains the universe.

It means developing our capacity to sense intuitively what causes love pleasure, and what causes love pain, and doing everything we can to enhance the pleasure, and diminish the pain."

I love this charter.

The Charter for Compassion

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.