Sharing Life – Sunday, October 27, 1985
“Share all of life’s joy and be rarely alone, for exile is empty, a harp without tone.”1 These words by John Colman remind us that we are at our best and happiest when we are with someone else, particularly those we love.
In the Biblical account of the Earth’s beginnings, the Lord created the first human being and then pronounces a basic truth: “It is not good,” He said, “that man should be alone,”2 and He gave Adam, Eve. What was true then is true today. It is not psychologically healthy nor productive or desirable to live our lives in loneliness.
William Blake said, “Everything that lives, lives not alone, nor for itself.”3
Have not each of us at one time or another seen some beautiful sight or experienced some exiting event and immediately wished our loved ones could enjoy it with us? This desire to blend our lives with others is as natural to a human being as is taking the next breath. We were born to share, to love, to cooperate, to help one another. As our world continues to get more complicated, more automated, and more technical, there is a danger that we may lose the personal and human touch that makes our daily activities worth doing. By sharing ourselves with others whom we can help and encourage, we counteract the dehumanizing aspects of a highly technical world. Giving our time, our energies, our attention to others is the most precious gift we can offer. Emerson said, “The only gift is a portion of thyself.”4
Giving of ourselves, sharing our lives and experiences, is the only way we can build bonds of love to withstand the powerful forces that are isolating people, cultures and nations today.
Giving financial aid or technological assistance can help improve the lives of others, but sharing ourselves multiplies the effectiveness of our charity.
Caring for and sharing with our brothers and sisters in the human family will help bring peace to this world and prepare us to be worthy of the heavenly world to come.
James Russell Lowell described the difference between giving and sharing from the Lord’s perspective in these famous lines from “The Vision of Sir Launfal”:
“Not what we give, but what we share—
For the gift without the giver is bare.
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three—Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.”5
1 Colman, John, “Life’s Joy,” Associated Music Publishers, Inc., New York, 1964.
2 Old Testament, Genesis 2:18
3 Blake, William
4 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Gifts,” Essays: Second Series, quoted in John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, Emily Morison Beck, Ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1980, p.498.
5 Lowell, James Russell, “The Vision of Sir Launfal,” p.11 st. 8, quoted in Bartlett, p.567.
October 27, 1985
Broadcast Number 2,932