Why giving shouldn't be a solitary activity
By Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Editor's note: Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are the authors of A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity. This is the second in a series of three guest posts.
Secular people often make giving a solitary activity at the end of the year, one that feels like a sacrifice. That’s the wrong way to think about giving back. We learned a lot from churches and temples and the way they turn giving into an enjoyable, uplifting social activity. Our profile of a master pastor at a mega-church, Bill Hybels, reveals some of the magic he employs. We all are social animals and when we do things with a group of people we like, the activity becomes more fun.
So form a book club and engage in a few volunteer or giving activities together—or link your book club to Book Clubs for Change, bookclubs4change.org. Choose a need in your community or an area of the world that you all care about. Then choose a topic and an organization you might work with. Or maybe consider an on-location trip to the area and meet some of the people you want to help?
Or join a chapter of Dining for Women, which is one of the secular organizations that borrows from the religious notion of fellowship and joyous giving for a cause. DFW has guests bring a pot luck dish to a host's home and then they all donate the money they would spend at a restaurant to a chosen cause empowering women worldwide. Some groups have a subcommittee screen a list of finalists and the group votes on a final selection. In A Path Appears, we list some other great organizations—there’s even one called Beer for Books—that make giving a social and fun occasion.
@fareedzakaria on Twitter
Philip u are a pig like blue saffron
Leave Philip alone Rupert. ROFLMAO
@Adam. U are a pig
Banasy is not here because she will spend the night in a pig's pen with philip and joey..
Haaaaaaaaheeeeee
Pig list
Eric Holder
Michel Obama
Taylor swift
Jennifer Lopez
Banasy
Philip
Blue Saffron
Hannah
Shinning Star
Cantor
Al Sharpton
GW Bush
All except for Michelle Obama's hairy legs and Adams apple of a dude, that is.
That have birth to two children, you utterly ignorant rumor-mongering ass.
*gave
I am Philip. I live in utah. I am an oil man...a wild catter.
I eat doggie poop.
I like to stalk women. Then steal their under.wear. I wear them when I am alone. Then I chop them up and burn them to ashes.
I have dark desires.
Philip. You are one sick b@s tard.
I have a ra pe kit:
Rope
Duct tape
Handkerchief
Handcuffs
Lubricant
Gloves
I am Philip. I am a sicko
Phillip, I see you're back to posting your odd remarks.
I suggest you take 50mg of Propofol.
Philip you disgust me.
You do realise @ Observer, that you probably just made his day by telling him that dont you? Thats the kinda thing he gets off on!
Yo. Chrissy. (no, wait. That's my Rocky Balboa) Ahem. Biatch! Who am u think u is.
Not me. I fell asleep right after work and just now awoke.
I'm so blue. I choked my last frog and am out of kittens. ;(
Kitten juggling isn't as fun as frog choking but it's better than nothing.
I'm blue from blowing up frogs. T take swizzle stick straws from my mom and poke them up frog butts and blow real hard and sometimes it makes my head tingle and face turn blue. Mom thinks it's cute of me. 🙂
What will it be like, yo. You do know what I am saying? Word up.
Gettin' jiggy with it.
– Will Smith
@ black rupert...yo, why dont you get jiggy with this~stop calling me a biatch and i wont call you the 8th dickless wonder of the world! Word up!!!!
And for the record @ rupert, most black people i know have more manners than you and dont talk like blooming idiots! Oh and you might be able to have surgery to correct that 8th wonder of the world problem you got going on then you may not be such a miserable fuch!
"Most black people." Lmao
What about most yellow people, Chrissy. How do they behave? In your opinions concerning how people of certain colors behave themselves. Are blacks got better manners than yellows?
bloo. Bbbbbloo.
I think his dick fell off. Am not sure.
Blue! Blue blue blue Bluuuuuue.
Stop choking me, honey.
The only thing you choke is your chicken, Philip.
You can put aside your violent rape fantasies, now.
Also, putting "blue" in front of a name doesn't absolve you from your lie that you never steal a poster's username.
9th Commandment and all, yanno?
I used the term "black" because that was the term YOU used!! And in all honesty MOST people have better manners than YOU no matter what color they are! If you didnt constantly start your crap with me i wouldnt have to toss it back at you! You were a much nicer guy when you posed as little mister! Now youre just a dirtbag always trying to pick a fight. And as one of the most important person in my life is dying im in no mood to be nice to your dirtbag azz!!!
Jimmay! Jimmay?
But i do sincerely hope you never have to watch your daughter die a slow and painful death no matter how mean and spiteful you are! Its the most horrid thing you can ever imagine and i wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy!
Blujoe? (take on King's Cujo)
Sorry to hear about your daughter, Chrissy. I hope she pulls through OK.
Are most yellow people good mannered, I wonder. Chrissy?
@ fake philip i just told you shes DYING! There is no pulling through. And if you were the real philip im sure that would thrill you to no end!
I was being sincere, Chrissy. Sheesh.
"The day of one's dying is better than the day of one's being born" said a man millions call The Wisest Man Who Ever Lived.
Your troubled start the day you are born and end on the day you die, is the explanation.
*troubles start, rather.
If that was meant to make me feel better, it didnt!!!
Your child is falling asleep, Chrissy. This, according to how Jesus described the condition of the dead; sleeping.
The priest and preacher man who claim you either go to heaven or burn in hell after you die are in staunch disagreement with what Jesus taught concerning the condition of the dead.