Living in the balance

It's a quiet cool drizzly Sunday afternoon. The boys are safely tucked away for naps as a warm lunch digests in their full bellies. Mrs. Blonde is at the grocery store. I grab a couple minutes to read some news and check email. MSN's homepage invites me to consider one of the many beaches in the world I could head off to visit...



And, my inbox reminds me that the world is filled with pain, starvation, disease and death. Just a few thousand miles and an ocean away. A world apart really. From comfort and abundance to lacking and loss.



So, I sit here. With no extra change to donate to the Save Darfur campaign that I adore. For today...right now...I raise my voice to you because my heart is reminded of its eternal perspective. These people deserve no more to be in their situation than I deserve to be in mine. We never chose to be born where we were born. Yet we both have a responsibility based on our geography. They're both heavy. For these brothers and sisters in Africa, the responsibility is to survive. For me. For you. For us...it's to give of the extreme amount that we have to those that lack.

We pray.

We give.

We advocate.

We visit.

All these things not only help them, but they help us. They teach us that the world is full of beating hearts. Crocodile tears. Babies without parents. Relationships. Realness. Not just statistics and headlines.

How do you do it?

How do you keep reminded of the greater perspective?

How do you live an awareness that works around the paralysis of thinking you can't make a difference?

Do you even care?

I often wonder if I do enough.

As I scroll back up and check out the beach scene again, I wonder how often a raised hand is right there and we never notice. Right now, I notice. Two hours from now, I might not. How do we live our lives in a state of notice?

-Mr Blonde