Motives Matter

#1754

“A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.”

-Charles Darwin

In other articles this writer has talked about the years of work involved getting his eight years of professional university education… working at night, going to class during the day. Now an old man, I remember how I would run from job to class.

During my years in Memphis, one of my jobs, selling pre-need burial plots in the large Forest Hills Cemetery (this is a large cemetery near Graceland where Elvis was placed before moving him to his home.)

After church, every Sunday, when I went to the cemetery to show property, I would notice one woman, rain or shine sitting on a bench near one tombstone. She was always there in the rain holding an umbrella. I finally went over to her and asked her if I could help her in some way. I saw the tombstone, a man’s name, his military rank, and the day he was killed in World War II. She said, “I come out and spend every Sunday with him.” I said, in my student activities in the VA hospital in Millington, “Why don’t you go out to Millington VA and tell them you would like to visit with the veteran there.” So many of them do not get visitors there and they would be so happy to see you.” I notice that I did not see her at the cemetery the next Sunday. The next time I was at Millington, I ran into her. She told me that she had never been so busy, all of her time from her job, volunteering with the veterans from that hospital. Most of us spend our lives wishing we had pure motives in dealing with others. There’s not much we can do for the dead, only the living. I have spent far too much time in my life wondering if god is keeping an account with those who had impure motives towards me. The fact that I know almost without hesitation that everyone wants a piece of the blind man… just how far they can get their hands down his pockets. It would be so good to have contact with a few who have pure motives.

For many years I would go to the local YMCA every day, for a workout. I needed the exercise as well as the contact with other people. It got to the place to where the YMCA did everything possible to keep the disabled away from the facility… made everything just as difficult as possible. For instance, they put push button security systems on every door. A blind person cannot operate these systems just as much as a blind person cannot operate a cell phone (AT&T and other cell phone corporations do not care about the blind people either.) I would have to wait for someone to go in and out of a door or beat on a door with my cane. As a local restaurant owner told me one time, “we don’t want disabled people, they make normal people feel uncomfortable.” One of the very few times I reported this discrimination-bigotry-injustice to the U.s justice department, Americans with Disabilities Act, they actually took action. They sent a lawyer down for a hearing. Totally blind, I did not know who was in the room besides me and the lawyer, but I do know that the “Y” was well represented. I heard one of the trustees (a political appointment) say, “If Dr. Morris will not go to the media about this, and we will make changes of our treatment of the disabled.” Of course, nothing was changed and I lost my membership. 

What I should have done was fix me a sign about the “Y’s” treatment of the disabled and protested out in front of the building, so the news media and everyone else could find out about it. You see, those good people “do-gooders,” who had established the YMCA had good motives… helping people. Now, the YMCA, hospitals, civic clubs, tax exempt charitable groups and much to my sorrow, I must say, most churches have become just concerned-MOTIVATED by their bottom line. They are no longer motivated by a god given desire to do good, for the sake of goodness. Our world is filled with people who cannot know the joy, an internal “neurology” which gives smiles and pleasures… the knowledge that you have done something good for someone without expecting anything in return. In that same room in the VA hospital in Millington, where four WW2 veterans who had lost their arms and their legs… All four were on special beds, just trunks with a head. Now, they could not ever in their remaining life, do anything for anyone. They had given their arms and legs for their country. I don’t know of a family who would be able to care for someone in that condition. One can easily understand why in their despondency-helplessness, they did not live very long. It is much the same way with our friends and family members who spend their last months on this earth in a nursing home. Most do not live very long after going to a nursing home and their government and their families are so afraid that they will live and continue to take precious money. Most people I have known reared in foster homes or children’s homes (one time called orphanages,) the children called inmates, have had a far different outlook on life. They felt there was very little love or genuine motivation in their care and development.

“Motives Matter,” teachers at the school house, church members at the church house, doctors/nurses/lawyers or even volunteers anywhere. Even at your job, you do what you do, with purity so that you can enjoy the words of noble thinking.