One of my therapists gave me a CD of a talk given by the guy who started Karma Kitchens. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a resterant/shoppe where each person pays for the food the people behind them order instead of their own. The principal behind it is that instead of repaying a good/kind deed that was done for you, you pass the good deed forward to someone else. Supposedly it is a Buddhist principal, but in reality it is Christian based. The illustration given is the pebble that is dropped into the middle of a pond sending ripples out from the spot the stone hit. As the ripples get farther out they multiply.

As I listened to the CD, I couldn’t help but think of I Corinthians 13 where the Bible says,
Amplified Bible (AMP)

13 “If I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such [a]as is inspired by God’s love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 And if I have prophetic powers ([b]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).

3 Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or [c]in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing.”
The speaker was presenting this concept as something he learned from a Buddhist monk and then developed further on his own. I felt sorry for the man because he couldn’t see that even while he was presenting how the principle was acted out in his life and the lives of others, he was blind to the underlying motivation of self-centeredness that was at the root of all his giving to others and even at the root of the principle itself. It was all about how good it feels to see and/or know that you have done something for a complete stranger that causes the stranger to feel good about what they received and also good about their participation in the act of passing the blessing on to someone else. Can you see the irony of it all in light of I Corinthians 13?