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FORBES TURNS TO ORIGINAL VERSE TO INSPIRE POVERTY AND DISABILITY CROWD
March 12, 2000
NEW YORK -- During his address to nearly 400 educators, health and human services workers and juvenile justice workers at the Conference on Poverty and Disability, the Reverend James Forbes of New York City's ecumenical Riverside Church reminded educators and social service workers to take time to rest from giving once in a while and allow others to do for them. He shared this original poem with the audience:
Receiving and Giving
I am a novice when it comes to receiving.
Giving has become my expertise.
But giving alone without getting becomes soon a fatal disease.
If the intake valve is not open, there's no way to maintain a supply.
There comes a point in the cycle of life where the outgoing stream runs dry.
Straining out love from a vacuum is like drinking from the heart of a stone.
Try as we may, at the end of the day we are exhausted, frustrated, alone.
Better to give than receive, we are taught,
But another truth I've learned just by living:
Only the soul with the grace to receive excels in the fine art of giving.
--Reverend James Forbes
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