A Different Story

A funny thing happened on the way to my rant this morning.

Well, several things.

One: I watched the news. A correspondent asked a 12-year old Haitian girl, “It’s a hard time to be 12 here, isn’t it?”

She replied, “It’s a hard time to be any age.“

Two: I had my usual anti-capitalist mental hissy fit (it became more of an out-loud hissy fit once the house emptied) while I brewed coffee, loaded a dishwasher, checked email and glanced at Facebook in my warm house with a roof, four walls and sealed windows.

I wondered aloud why it’s easier to give when given something in return — why do I need a t-shirt or a CD? Why don’t I ask Tom to give away both pairs of shoes? Where’s my tax deductible receipt?

Why do I look at my excess to determine my capacity to give?

Three: I took care of business with Samaritan’s Purse. (Always good to have that done before starting a rant about giving.)

Four: I burned my PopTarts. Burning food is a regular thing when I’m in the kitchen. It is no joke that the smoke detector goes off when I make Jell-O.

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Burning PopTarts was the turning point. That I was out of oatmeal and resorted to frosted cardboard slabs anyway already irritated me. But burning them was the frosting on the PopTart. I slid them onto a plate and headed to the garage to throw them away. Burned PopTarts stink up the house like burned popcorn. (I know these things.)

And then I tripped over my self-righteousness on the way to the door.

In the midst of my hissy fit over excess and waste and misplaced priorities, I turned to throw away food that was not prepared to my standards.

It’s just a PopTart. Eating it will not alleviate suffering in Haiti any more than cleaning my plate as a child would have helped starving children in Africa. And the boys will just eat any PopTarts left in the cupboard anyway. I may as well make a new one.

I don’t feel guilty about the blessings and privilege we enjoy as North Americans. I am often conflicted about them, but not guilty.

I believe the right word would be irresponsible.

I feel irresponsible about how I handle those blessings.  I put too many of them to use for my own comfort and enjoyment.

But the blessings? They’re God’s. Far be it from me to direct Him not to bless because I can’t cope with the responsibility.

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That’s just where I am this morning. The rant has receded into more of a contemplation. Less vitriol to spew about what everyone else needs to do, and more pondering about what goes on in my own heart. I ate my PopTart. Dry as paper and blackened around the edges, but really, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t too bad.

As the burned smell edged down the stairs to my office, my mind wandered to a visit several years ago to a tinglado in the Argentine interior. Look that word up, and the dictionary will tell you it’s a shed, or a setup.

We arrived by bus to the middle of nowhere, and quickly learned this setup was an old brick warehouse that had been hastily arranged to accommodate families displaced by a flood in a nearby village.

Funny, I didn’t recall hearing about any recent flood in the region.

Turns out I hadn’t heard of it because the flood raged through three years earlier. This old warehouse had been home to these families ever since. Once inside, the smoke made my kitchen look like somewhere Emeril might work. Hundreds occupied this tight space, each family sectioned off with no more than a curtain, and each compartment furnished with a bed, a chair, and a fire for heat and cooking.

Three years later.

We brought clothing, we held dirty children, we prayed with weary mothers, and we shared Jesus. I imagine that now, years later, folks are still raising children in that run down tinglado.

It occurs to me that many of these situations do not resolve. Not quickly, not ever.

We give, and we work, and we sacrifice.

But still, suffering continues unabated.

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This becomes permission for us to stop caring. We don’t make a dent.

It doesn’t matter if I throw away breakfast.

My business with Samaritan’s Purse this morning? It won’t make dent. It really won’t.

It will not solve Haiti’s problems.

It will not move families from a tinglado into their own homes.

It will not save the world.

But for a moment, if only that, it will give hope to one family in immediate need.

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Step back from the enormity for just a second this morning, would you? Disregard the numbers. Imagine one family. One home. One child.

There are ways you can help — I’m loading suggestions into my sidebar as soon as I see them in my reader.

Go burn your breakfast. Enjoy how He’s blessed you — He wants you to!

But then find a way to multiply it.

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About those blessings: this helped me reorient this morning. I receive an email from Matthew Henry every day. (How cool is that? Matthew Henry emails from beyond!) Here’s today’s reading from A Method for Prayer: