Let's Talk Do good then disappear letter of thanks. At first I felt very pleased, because this is a gracious thing to do, and I appreciated his acknowledgement ack-nowledgement of my gift. Then suddenly I knew I had my reward and that was not why I had made the gift to the support of that school in the squalor of Naples. While visiting an orphanage orphan-age in the slums of Naples, Italy, Casa Materna, I saw how a little gift could do so much for so many. I wrote a check and felt great. Pastor Emanuele Santi, struggling with English, a foreign language to him, wrote me a most beautiful By REV. LEE TRUMAN Copley News Service I was in a hospital burn ward in Belgium with a lot of time to think. I finally translated the faded Gothic letters over the archway in my ward as "Do good, and disappear." A very kindly nurse found for me the origin of these words. They had been written writ-ten in the diary of Genevieve Hennet de Goutel, a heroic Belgian nurse who had died in the trenches of World War I. I found those words were not easily pushed aside. My thoughts were often about that nurse who would write this kind of admonition and I would wonder what she knew of life. When anyone gives something, some-thing, does a kindness or performs a helpful act, the most natural reaction is to want to collect the gratitude due him or her. So why disappear? dis-appear? If it is an act or a word needed, so many emotions emo-tions may be involved on the part of the person receiving the kindness that he or she cannot respond, except with tears or at best, awkwardness. awkward-ness. If you desire to help someone, some-one, you give that help as you can, and as the good nurse said, then disappear. In practice, I have found that this simple axiom is difficult dif-ficult It is difficult because it is as if there is a ravenous animal inside of us mortals which is desperately hungry for gratitude. Our Creator has made us physically in such a way that it is difficult for us to pat our own backs, but we surely like for others to pat it for us. We need to keep our charitable chari-table contributions identified identi-fied for tax and for other reasons, but when it comes to recogition, that certainly is not the case.