Theos-Talk Archives (July 1998 Message tt00098)

 I was sad to see Brenda get jumped on, very sad to learn of
Alan's difficult situation, and irritated by the assumptions
behind several comments earlier by Alan and Thoa.  Generally this
whole situation has made me so uncomfortable with the list that
I've considered signing off for a while.

First: I was so startled by the suggestion that some individual
here might have a spare $130,000 to donate for a good cause that
like so many others, I just passed it by without knowing what to
make of it.  Alan, I work full time and am barely keeping out of
debt, have next to no savings and live in a $24,500 house which
it's a struggle to make mortgage payments on while maintaining
it and a barely middle class lifestyle.  Not "poor" but just scraping
along, one paycheck from disaster as Jake put it (I think.)  So
the *second* post, Alan, in which you brought up the First
Object, expressed anger that only one person had responded,
and not very subtly called anyone not offering you help a bad
Theosophist, was irritating.  Helping unemployed people buy a
house worth more than five times what I can afford while working,
people I have never met, doesn't feel like my Theosophical duty.

Second: The greatest concern here to me is that someone is
threatening to do violence to himself or others if a certain
outcome (i.e. staying in the same house) does not occur.  I just
cannot see any sense, in *any* situation like this, of providing
the said person the thing demanded as a cure for the problem.
Like Brenda, I wonder if someone capable of making such threats over
one issue can ever be dealt with by such appeasement, and if they
would recur over other situations.

Third: It is indeed a dreadful situation and I have worried over
it a lot in these last few days.  Sharing such concerns on the
list may be appropriate.  Direct appeals for funds, and
spiritually judgmental commentary on people who don't ante up,
don't seem appropriate uses of the list IMO.  But that seems to
be a minority view.

Fourth:  Thoa, it may be perfectly legitimate in some ideal world
to say "Give whatever is asked of you, from the heart, without
taking any thought."  But that is not reasonable advice for the
real world we are living in.  I feel pressured by such comments
to join the fundraising campaign, and stigmatized by negative
remarks about those who do not contribute.

This has all raised my consciousness about several issues, and
for that I'm grateful.  But the way the issue has affected
discourse on the list makes me uncomfortable with continuing
here.

Cheers,
Paul