Wednesday, April 26, 2006

How Dare You

Thousands of Children in the Sudan walk 5 miles every night and every morning to sleep in a cage to be safe from LRA rebel soldiers.

I NEED NEW FURNITURE IN MY FAMILY ROOM.

Those children who are abducted are turned into soldiers. forced to kill their siblings. gang raped by their captors.

MY THIGHS ARE FAT.

Religious intolerance and fundamentalism fuels genocide around the world. The entire region of Darfur Africa has been burned, killed, pillaged. The inhabitants forced out to live with no shelter. No care. No food.

I SHOULD HAVE CHOSEN STAINLESS STEEL APPLIANCES.

In the Congo Africa, women are gang raped in front of their children by the rebel forces. Their skin carved. Their bones broken. Their legs tied to trees and their innocence consumed by violent rape.

I CAN'T BEAR TO DRIVE MY JETTA ONE MORE YEAR.

Women in the Middle East are denied the human right of merely being a human. Girls denied the human right of education. Slaughtered in the street for showing the skin of an ankle. Killed for even the illusion of impropriety.

I AM SO SICK OF MY JOB.

Four million people in Pakistan are displaced. No home. Buried alive.

MY COFFEE TABLE IS OLD.


People. Children. Women. Their breath. Their ability to eat. Their ability to learn. Their ability to sleep the night without fear. Them. Them. Them. Them.

I AM BLESSED BEYOND COMPREHENSION.

Their suffering lives in my spirit.
Only self absorbsion blocks my view.

3 comments:

Sid said...

My job does kind of suck...

Anonymous said...

that was in a word.. AMAZING!
i love how you wrote that!

Anonymous said...

I had chills reading this.

I think the key word is "self-absorption." If the things I own, or the life I lead, help me to give love and peace, to connect in a personal way with others, then it can be OK to have that new coffee table.

I just need to be careful not to search after the "things" just for the "things" sake alone, and forget I am a part of a larger picture.

Thanks for the reminder.