PRETTY BASIC, INDEED

Mid-day Thursday, I texted a friend to say that we were watching The Dark Knight that evening. Her immediate reply read, "I thought we're watching Batman?"

Alright, I just thought of sharing that cute story which has nothing to do with what I really intend to blog about.

Oseola McCarty was 91 when she died of liver cancer. For a rather brief moment about a decade ago she became quite famous because she had given away her life savings of $150,000 to help total strangers get a college education at the University of Southern Mississippi in her hometown of Hattiesburg. She died in the little frame house where she earned a small fortune taking in laundry and ironing.

Oseola McCarty (1908-1999)

In the summer of 1995, Oseola decided to give away most of her estate, saying there was nothing in particular she wanted to buy. She had lived a solitary existence surrounded by rows of clothes she made pretty for people who knew her only as the washerwoman. “I’m giving it away so that the children won’t have to work so hard, like I did,” she said.[1]

Her gift had quite an effect on people. For an old woman who only came out of her house to worship at Friendship Baptist Church and to buy groceries, she was little prepared to be honored by the United Nations, to be visited by President Clinton, and to receive more than 300 awards, including an honorary doctorate from Harvard. [2]

Contributions from more than 600 additional donors made her initial gift worth half a million dollars. After hearing of her generosity, Ted Turner gave away a billion dollars saying, “If that little woman can give away everything she has, then I can give a billion.” People would see her in airports and flock to her. Some people just wanted to touch her, as though she was good luck.[3]

This effect intrigues me. She did a very simple thing, really, something that, say, anyone in this room could do in their own way. “There’s a lot of talk about self-esteem these days,” she said. “It seems pretty basic to me. If you want to feel proud of yourself, you’ve got to do things you can be proud of. Feelings follow actions.”[4]

Pretty basic, indeed. But more than just knowing she'd feel good when she does something good, she did good out of her deep faith and love for Christ.

You want to feel really good about yourself, about your life, then you have to do things that matter in the name of Christ. Not big things, necessarily. Not things that are beyond the range of your life, like discovering a cure for cancer or giving a billion dollars, but simple, important things, nevertheless. Things that are well within your reach, like acts of courage, compassion, and, yes, generosity of a kind you had not considered before, but are entirely capable of accomplishing: opportunities that come as regularly as the rain.

____________________

1 Bauman, Stephen, All Stirred Up, October 2, 2005 CCNYC

2 ibid

3 ibid

4 ibid