The Benefits of Sacrifice

This week I was intrigued when I heard about the fast that has been going on around the country to protest budget cuts at the Capitol. It consisted of thousands of people, including pastors, activists and high school students, who began fasting as a path of action.

The main concern among many was that the proposed budget sought to reduce funding to poor women and children in this time of dire need in the country. One of their statements was to consider: Is it morally important to look after the poorest among us?  Whether we agree with their position or not, seeing people step out and stand up for their beliefs regarding the conditions of others is powerful.

Make a Stand

The act of fasting has been around since ancient times and has been used for various reasons—religious, medical, political, social and ceremonial.  

If we look at the world today, there are personal sacrifices happening everywhere. The men and women at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex nuclear plant in Japan working to shut down the reactor, knowing the effort may take their lives, is a prime example.

We see people around us doing their best without jobs. There are those in physical or mental distress, those fighting wars without answers, and more. So many are sacrificing something just to get by. Yet I want to talk of sacrifice as an act of grace. No, not a religious tenet of pain and flaying but a simple act of conscience that displays the infinite power of our humanity.

What Is Real Sacrifice?

Mohandas Gandhi told us: “Real sacrifice lightens the mind of the doer and gives him a sense of peace and joy.”  When you hold your tongue and forsake the need to be right for the path of peace—that is sacrifice. When you save the money from your daily latte and give the monthly sum to the homeless shelter—that is sacrifice. When you stop the pace of your busy day to see about another—that is sacrifice.  A sacrifice is a gift not just to another, but to oneself.

In seeing that there is something we can do, give or be, we elevate a spot within us that has always been there. We become greater individually,   which in turn makes all of us better as a whole.  

A simple question tests each of us. That is: What happens when the small man dies of hunger? Does he merely fade without a remnant, or does he haunt all of our souls as we sit before the table for our daily bread? 

Sometimes people are like the man with gangrene in his big toe who chose to ignore it because, after all, it was only one toe. He still had nine other ones. He ignored it as it crept up his foot because he had another foot, and so on.

Before long, he realized that the gangrene that once had been in only one toe was going to take his life. He wished he had cared about that toe. Humanity together is the sum of a body. We are one entity. When something happens to the one, it will affect the rest. This we must begin to know and accept. There is enough, I believe, if we work together to achieve it. There is enough for all of us.