SERVING THE LEAST OF THESE

There are some blogs that I have have come to love over the past few years.  We all have our favorites.  

Most mom bloggers know about Ann from Holy Experience.  She is an amazing writer and photographer and so consistent and honest in her blog.  Since I have quite a few family members and friends who do not blog I thought I should introduce you to the inspiration behind  the Gratitude Community and 1000 Gifts.  I always link up to her Gratitude posts on Mondays.   She even has a book coming out next year!

Occasionally I participate in Walk With Him Wednesdays,  where dozens of other women share their their thoughts on topics of faith.   Ann has just come back from a trip with Compassion to Guatemala City.  She has written some beautiful words about meeting her sponsor child.  These next few weeks she has asked everyone to discuss  "how to care for the least of these". 
I have no answers - only thoughts leading to questions.

Those in need are easy to find in Guatemala City and countless places around the world.  I see the news, I read the blogs of those who have been, I see the photos and I am moved.

But...

I am removed.

In my air conditioned SUV, I listen to satellite radio, driving my children to their private school.  I stood in my brightly lit, walk-in closet this morning contemplating what to wear.  I own 14 pairs of shoes.  I have accessories.


On a shelf in my closet, sits a silver frame, within a photo of Winifrida.  She lives in Tanzania, Africa in a area where AIDS is rampant.    She is happy in the photo because the money we sent was used to purchase her shoes and a bag of rice for her family.  She doesn't own accessories. She lives in a mud hut.  

How do these worlds exist simultaneously?  The silver frame and the mud hut.  The excess and the need. When you live in suburbia, how do you cross that bridge to "the least of these"?
I don't know.
I do know that sending that monthly check is good.  It is good, but not enough.  It is like the Bible story of the widow's offering.  We are the rich who give out of their wealth not out of sacrifice.  
I hope that someday I can go, like Ann, and see this child that writes me letters of thanks for changing her life.  She traced her hand once on the back of the letter.  She draws little pictures of people and huts and balls.  

"To whom much is given, much will be expected."
 Those are heavy words, when weekly I list the hundreds of gifts that I have been given.  


I keep going back to Ann's post, her experience.  Her description of meeting a native minister there and his story of coming to Christ through a billboard that read  "God is love.  Now experience it."
And his words "...and I do all this because he who has been loved much, serves much."  


Again - heavy words.


And the question.  Will I do something with this?
Can I be more than touched and moved?  Will I move and touch?
Will I find the least of these in my community?  Let's find out.

1000 GIFTS CONTINUED

326.  the last blooms of summer
327.  a crispness in the morning air
328.  preparing for autumn

329.  old books
330.  lamplight
331.   sparkly new big-girl bikes

332.  making a new friend that shares my paint and fabric obsession
333.  Wednesday night dinners at church
334.  hearing the girl chatter from my daughter's room 
335.  lemonade stands
336.  community garage sales
337.  story time crafts at the library
338.  gummy worms

339.  the 48 hour painting crew

340.  new pale pink walls (no pictures until I finish the curtains)
341.  online knitting sites
342.  the magic that happens with 2 sticks and some string

343.  frilly new teacups

344.  a cup of tea on the front porch in the cool morning air
345.  vintage typewriters
346.  the color orange

347.  new friends at the dog park
348.  dogs and kids wearing each other out by running laps 
349.  a hilarious site at the Walmart intersection  (prairie dogs waiting for the light to change!)

350.  100% on spelling tests
351.  pizza day at school
352.  carpooling
353.  teachers who assign "random acts of kindness" as homework
354.  compliments on my children's behavior from the couple behind us in church
355.  a soft mattress and feather pillow
356.  a change of attitude
357.  how easily a list of hundreds is compiled
358.  the abundance of God's love and care

MOMENTS IN TIME

Today I was going to write a cute little post about Barbies and then I turned on my computer and saw a comment waiting from Nancy.  (She is one of those 3 fans I mentioned yesterday, that missed my absence in the blogging world.)  I popped over to Nancy's place and saw that she had written about September 11 and she was encouraging everyone to write down their memories of that day.


We all share those moments that stand still in time rather than blur into one another as so many of our days, months and years do.  Nancy describes the day JFK was shot down to the detail of the chicken salad sandwhich her mother served while they watched it unfold on television.  I remember being in the library in middle school when the space shuttle Challenger blew up.  I can picture the very moment, the curve on the street, the dashboard of my car, the lunch I just ate, when I turned on the radio to hear the announcement that the federal building in my home state of Oklahoma had just been bombed.  


On September 11, 2001 my first born was in his first week of a Mother's Day Out program at church.  I was 8 months pregnant with my daughter and was in the car headed home to prepare the nursery.  My husband had driven to Arkansas on business for the week.  Again it was the radio that informed me of the initial plane crash.  By the time I arrived home and turned on the TV it was clear that America had been changed forever.  Everything was quiet that day.  I picked up my son from church along with dozens of other dazed families.  No one knew what to say or do.  I remember long lines at the gas station over the next couple days.  Like everyone else I watched endless television until I could only wander to bed wondering "What kind of world are my children going to live in?"


Last year my husband and I went on a 4 day trip to NYC.  We had a fabulous time touring the city and all the neighborhoods and landmarks.  We went to the World Trade Center Site.  The most touching thing I saw was the St. Paul's Chapel.  It is Manhattan's oldest public building.  A place where George Washington worshipped.  It is a beautiful old church building surrounded by a gated cemetery.  It is a striking picture in the middle of NYC's financial district and sat in the shadow of the twin towers.  It received almost no damage from the collapse of the towers and served as a haven around the clock for rescue workers.  Part of the church is an exhibit about those terrible days, showcasing photos, flags, firefighters helmets, banners and notes from around the country.  Across one wall was a huge banner from the state of Oklahoma that brought tears to my eyes.

Today, 9 years later, my neighborhood is having a community garage sale, we are headed to a child's pizza party this evening and right now I sit and type whatever thoughts are in my head on a blog.  Life goes on.  There are dates and times, moments and places we all remember.  Some we share such as September 11, others hold personal significance and pass unnoticed to others.  


We are beginning a study at church called the Imitation of Christ.  This week we began by describing moments in life and how they mark our lives and measure time.  We read Max Lucado's words about a most remarkable moment.  

"It all happened in a moment, a most remarkable moment.  As moments go, that one appeared no different than any other.  If you could somehow pick it up off the timeline and examine it, it would look exactly like the ones that have passed while you have read these words.  It came and it went.  It was preceded and succeeded by others just like it... But in reality, that particular moment was like none other.  For through that segment of time a spectacular thing occurred.  God became man.  While the creatures of earth walked unaware.  Divinity arrived."


I love that description and it speaks to the humility of God, arriving quietly and without fanfare.  So much of what the Bible describes of Christ are little moments, details, the way he spoke or touched someone, the quiet way in which he preformed even miraculous events.


Obviously big moments stick with us and shape our lives but I keep telling myself to remember those little moments too.  The little details that make up our lives in between the big stuff.  That's one of the reasons so many women blog, or journal or scrapbook - to record the little things before they vanish in the blur of life.  I think the artists ability to capture the little details is what makes the big picture beautiful and significant.  So it is with life.