Being an honest human being is invaluable in life! Knowing yourself and realizing your needs and at the same time feeling the others, appreciating their needs is a call with neither voices nor words: thus you are really a human being who have not lost the greatest gift given to him by God!
While he was sleeping on a seat in the street, for he had no shelter, a young man approached him, leaving a sum of money beside his jacket, on which he laid his head, and left quickly. After a while, the man woke up to find the money which made him overwhelmingly happy, he raised his head to heaven as if he is addressing God with thankful words. The man rushed into a shop from which he bought some of his needs, and came back to his place filled with joy, holding his shopping bag. After nearly ten minutes, the young man came back phoning someone and asking him for money to buy medicine for his sick daughter!
No sooner had the young man finished his phone call, than the man came towards him inquiring about his state, he was told about the young man’s daughter who was in great need of medicine which he couldn’t afford.
The man left his bag with the young man, asking him to wait for a little while, and then he returned offering him money! The young man asked where had he got the money from, the man answered saying that he gave back the blanket and pillow to the store he had just bought from! The young man was astonished; wondering about what urged the man to offer money he himself badly needed.
Yet, the man told him that he felt he is in more need for money than himself, saying, “I can go on with my current state, but your daughter is in need of a medicine that would save her life!” Hence, the young man uncovered the truth, saying: “you have done a great human work” granting him extra money! The man’s tears fell, unbelieving what happened!
On the other hand, I was surprised by the woman who wants nothing but hoarding money, in a struggle with fear of the future, believing that more money balance would save her from the evils of life and would fortify her against life storms! So she gave a little to the nearest people to her; her husband and children, fancying that she pursues wisely! However, days go on, proving her to be wrong; she lost everything because she wanted to own everything and her greatest loss was her humanity!
I will stop at an inquiry set up by someone; “when will we learn and realize that we are departing, with nothing of our money or our possessions we acquired in this life?! When will we believe that the Afterlife will bear only what we did and offered throughout our short journey on the earth?” Alexander of Macedon was said to commend the leader of his army with three things he would do in case of his death: the first is to have his coffin carried by his doctors only, the second is to scatter along the way to his tomb pieces of gold, silver and precious stones, which he had collected throughout his life, and the third is to get his hands out of the shroud so they would remain open; he wanted to leave three messages to those who are alive:
The first is that upon death, nobody, not even doctors can help, as health and life are a wealth that nobody can ever grant, the second is that people shall know they will take nothing of what they had collected except for their good deeds, and the third is that all of us, the human beings, shall know that we came this world barehanded, and will depart as such.
What you offer is what you only get in your eternity: what would you offer then?!
General Bishop
Head of Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
