Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?
Have I done any good in the world today?
Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad?
If not, I have failed indeed.
Has anyone’s burden been lighter today
Because I was willing to share?
Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way?
When they needed my help was I there?
The words of the hymn “Have I Done Any Good in the World Today,” written by Will L. Thompson, call to one’s heart feelings of duty towards those around us. Of all the places I have lived in my life, I have never lived in a community where the sentiments expressed in this hymn are so consistently felt and acted upon by community members. Frederick County is truly a place where people are engaged in doing good, helping the needy and bearing each other’s burdens.
Organizations like The Mission of Mercy, The Religious Coalition, The Veteran Service’s Center, Blessings in a Backpack, I Believe in Me, Heartly House, Steadfast, city/town food banks, city shelters and many others work around the clock and the calendar to serve community members. And these organizations are largely supported by the volunteer efforts of those around us — my neighbors and your neighbors.
For the past several years, the period of mid-September to mid-October in the greater D.C. area has been a time of focused community service. Once called “Day to Serve,” and then “Just Serve,” communities have banded together across the three states to lift one another and to volunteer time, talents and other resources to seek our neighbors’ interests and wellbeing.
For those who have participated, this has been a joyful experience, one that has engendered stronger relationships among members of our communities, greater awareness for the good that is done by charitable organizations throughout the year, and greater desire to attend to those in need around us. In the spirit of following this tradition of a service-focused month of community goodwill comes this invitation: get involved!
If you are wondering how to do so, I recommend an amazing internet resource: justserve.org, “a website where volunteer needs of organizations are posted, and volunteers can search for opportunities to enhance the quality of life in their communities,” per the website’s About page.
There are chances for work all around just now,
Opportunities right in our way.
Do not let them pass by, saying, “Sometime I’ll try,”
But go and do something today.
‘Tis noble of man to work and to give;
Love’s labor has merit alone.
Only he who does something helps others to live.
To God each good work will be known.
One does not need to be religious in order to be charitable and active in serving others. But the scriptures are quite clear; one does need to be charitable, and active in serving others, to be religious.
The author of the Epistle of James (believed to be James, the brother of Christ) defined pure, undefiled religion as this: “To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep [oneself] unspotted from the vices world” (James 1:27, New Testament, KJV, JST).
It shouldn’t surprise us to hear such sentiment expressed from someone who grew up around Jesus. This same Jesus taught the Two Great Commandments, and that loving “thy neighbor as thyself” was second only to loving God on the scale of eternal importance (Mark 12:30-31, New Testament, KJV).
His disciples expound on his teachings, for example Paul (New Testament) and Mormon (Book of Mormon) taught that all of us need to nurture faith, hope and charity – but that “the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13, New Testament, KJV; Moroni 7:46, Book of Mormon) and that if a person has many good things, but “has not charity, they are nothing” (Moroni 7:44, Book of Mormon).
The real reason for this emphatic declaration is sometimes overlooked. Doing charitable things is not something that blesses the recipients of charity alone, and alleviating poverty, or diminishing suffering are not the only motivations behind Christ’s injunction to do so. In truth, the giver of charity is just as blessed as the receiver of charity. In giving of ourselves, we become someone better, more whole, and more like the Savior of the world.
Offering charity changes us. As we become active in seeking others’ wellbeing, we will discover that we gain more than we give. Our pains will be turned to joy as we seek to alleviate the pains of others; our burdens will be lightened as we assist in the bearing of others’ burdens; our deep and secret wounds will be healed as we tend to the wounds of others.
Then wake up and do something more
Then dream of your mansion above.
Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure,
A blessing of duty and love.
Michael Turner serves as a counselor in the Frederick Stake Presidency for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Frederick. He is also a professor at Mount St. Mary’s University.