★ Tithing - Giving Back to the World

Growing up, I was taught that you should give 10% of your gross income to the church – Tithing. Tithing is a common theme in The Law of Attraction. Give out and you will receive back.

I’m at a point in my life where I would like to start tithing on a regular basis. However, being a religious Nomad, I don’t belong to an organized religion. Moreover, it isn’t in my future plans to join any.

That being said, I don’t believe that tithing is something to do for show (see how great I am because I donate $XXX to YYY.) Nor, do I have an overwhelming passion for any particular cause. My niece gives to every animal shelter, animal rescue mission, etc.. That is nice, too… for her.

However, this is very personal for me. It has to carry meaning behind it. There has to be emotion and genuine desire from me. Plus, I want to model appropriate behavior for my kids – give from the heart; for the right reasons…

Please tell me how you decide who you tithe to. Give me some ideas of good organizations who actually use the money mainly on the cause and not a majority on the marketing / salary behind the cause.

I am very grateful for your opinions.

In response to meditatingmama’s post:

Hi MM what a great post. One organization I have seen actually made me cry. When you see it you will see why I cried. It is so baautiful.

Operation Smile

I also live in California where there are far too many homeless people living on the streets. We are talking about whole families. The rents are ridiculously high one bedroom $900-1200 monthly.

Many people are losing their jobls. Children who are 13 years of age cannot stay with their families in homeless shelters for safety reasons regarding sexual activity. It is traumatising for them. They go from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. The organization below helps.

Union Rescue Mission

Peace,
Mary

I trust in unicef (unite for children). They always have different projects. I usually pick a project, which touches me and pay a bulk.

Hi! I am actually a strong Christian, but I don’t believe we have to tithe to a church. I believe we tithe to those in need — the Bible speaks a lot about widows and children, but again, I don’t believe we have to tithe to just those people either.

I believe anytime you give to anyone who is in need, you are doing a great thing — whether it is to animals, children, the homeless, whatever.

I personally believe God (enter deity of choice lol) is warmed whenever we see a need a try to meet it in the best way we can — whether with our time, money, donated items, prayers, etc.

Good luck on your journey!

Thank you for these wonderful ideas, Afi & Mary~

I used to live in the San Francisco Area and rented a dump (rats, missing linoleum chunks on the floor) and felt LUCKY to only pay $1500 per month for a two bedroom, one bathroom duplex!! I remember how it was in the late 1990’s. My tiny two bedroom house, 1100 square foot house that we bought in 1999 was $505,000. That area is EXTREME to live in!! The only way to buy a house was (is??) to sell your stock options!! The whole reason we left California is the company I worked for was about to go bankrupt and I knew we couldn’t afford to live in our house with one salary and one unemployment check. Back then, it was easy to sell a house and take the equity and RUN!! I don’t know if that is the case anymore with the housing / mortgage industry problems.

Families left to homeless shelters is an extremely frightening situation. I cannot imagine leaving my oldest daughter somewhere else just because she was over 13.

Operation Smile is another good idea. My sister’s daughter (my niece) was born without half a face. It was a big giant hole. She is now 12 years old and has had hundreds of thousands of dollars of reconstructive surgery. However, my sister didn’t know of any foundations that supported her daughters issues. I think Operation Smile would fall under that category – at least to some extent.

Hmmmm… I wonder what is would take to start a foundation….

In response to meditatingmama’s post:

What a beautiful idea MM starting your own foundation. Lee has no idea the wonderful dominoe affect he started!

Better and better,
Mary