I Will Go!

A little over a year ago, while visiting Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou,

Guangdong Province, one of the research scholars in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology asked me why I was interested in China.  My focus has been on the nature and history of charitable activity in China, particularly that activity motivated by religious commitments.  But, my response to the questions was somewhat complicated. It all started with my father and mother's sense of calling to go to China in the late 1930s.  They never went at that time, so this was an unfulfilled sense of a particular calling until they visited China when they were in their early 80s.

But, it was the Great Earthquake of 2008 in Sichuan Province that focused my attention and drew my heart to the country and people there.  Now, after a number of trips and several months there, this hymn I heard recently seems to tell the story better than I did to the scholars at Sun Yat-sen University.

I, the Lord, of sea and sky

I have heard my people cry

All who dwell in dark and sin

My hand will see

I who made, the stars and night,

I will make the darkness bright

Who will bare my life to them?

Whom shall I send?

I will break the hearts of stone

Heal their hearts for love alone

I will speak my word to them

Who shall I send?

Here I am, Lord

Is it I, Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night

I will go, Lord

If you lead me

I will hold your people in my heart

I, the Lord, of wind and flame

I will tend the poor and lame

I will send peace for them

My hand will say

Finest bread I will provide

Till their hearts be satisfied

I will give my life to them

Who shall I send?

Here I am, Lord

Is it I, Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night

I will go, Lord

If you lead me

I will hold your people in my heart

Here I am, Lord

Is it I, Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night

I will go, Lord

If you lead me

I will hold your people in my heart

What you have here in this one hymn are all the essential elements of a reasonable perspective on charity.  It is one governments, no matter what form, can replicate. It encompasses an assurance of calling; a knowledge of being sent, a compassion for all people, and particularly those in need; the courage and initiative to respond and go and tend to that calling; and reason and character of accountability.