when things don't line up
It has been a day full of thoughts and ponderings ...So funny how I can do all kinds of different things and go to different places and not really think twice, but then something happens or a thought enters my mind and all of a sudden I see things in a different light.
I look back on my day, and I can't seem to make things line up. I woke up this morning in my comfortable bed and walked around my warm house ... then enjoyed a warm shower. After taking my dogs outside and watching them romp around freely in the backyard, I was welcomed back into my house by the wonderful smell of bread baking in the oven. I had made the bread from a selection of ingredients in my cupboards and fridge, some of which I had bought at the grocery store just last night. I brewed a pot of coffee and readied myself for the second weekly prayer meeting that is held at my house. At that meeting, we spoke about God and prayed and read our Bibles freely, even speaking about the incredible freedom and liberty that we have to do so.
Soon the meeting ended and I walked up the street to work. A morning full of computer work and phone calls. Then I went to Wal-mart to buy Christmas presents for the kids in my program, and ended up spending $246 on hats, gloves, socks, and body wash. I drove back to work (in the county-owned car) and popped my lunch in the microwave. After a couple minutes, the aroma of homemade chili warmed the frigid air in my office. I enjoyed a full hour for lunch, safe in my office with my warm food and a new book.
At the end of the day, I walked to my house, where I played with my dogs and changed my clothes ... then proceeded to job # 2. The restaurant was bustling tonight with women whose scarves matched their socks and men whose wallets looked tired from all the Christmas shopping in which they had participated. I served food to people who didn't say thank you or please, and picked at their food and complained if it was too hot or too cold or too sweet or too salty. Without asking any questions, people dished out $30 or $40 for a meal that they could have prepared at home for less than $8. I emptied out plate after plate into the trash, because there "wasn't enough" to take home or someone didn't really "like" the food enough to finish it.
After work, I stopped at the grocery store and grabbed some food for my dogs. The one human-operated register had a long line, so I opted for a "self serve" register where I could check out, pay, and exit the store without speaking to a single, living soul. And I managed to do just that -- I smiled as I looked in the eyes of employees as I was walking out, and was met with blank stares and expressionless faces.
My dogs were happy to see me as I filled up their bowls with food and gave them clean water to drink. We went for a short run outside, and I felt safe in my (fairly) well-lit neighborhood, strong with my healthy body, and capable in my new running shoes.
I enjoyed a warm shower and changed into yet another set of clothes (this time warm flannel pajamas), and sat down to read as I sipped a cup of warm tea that took me just moments to prepare on my electric stove.
I have been revisiting my bookshelves in search of books that I purchased a while back but never read, and just last night I dusted off a book entitled "The aWAKE Project". The subtitle is "United Against the African Aids Crisis". Basically, the work is a collection of pieces written by many well-known figures such as Bono, Philip Yancey, George W. Bush, and Danny Glover.
Here is an excerpt from the first piece (written by journalist Johanna McGeary) that I read tonight. I had to take several breaks to get through the rest of this article, because the tears made it difficult to read:
Imagine your life this way.Kinda makes a "not sweet enough" sweet tea and a cold cup of coffee not seem all that important.
You get up in the morning and breakfast with your three kids. One is already doomed to die in infancy. Your husband works 200 miles away, comes home twice a year and sleeps around in between. You risk your life in every act of sexual intercourse. You go to work past a house where a teenager lives alone tending young siblings without any source of income. At another house, the wife was branded a whore when she asked her husband to use a condom, beaten silly and thrown into the streets. Over there lies a man desperately sick without access to a doctor or clinic or medicine or food or blankets or even a kind word. At work you eat with colleagues, and every third one is fatally ill. You whisper about a friend who admitted that she had the plague and whose neighbors stoned her to death. Your leisure time is occupied by the funerals you attend every Saturday. You go to bed fearing adults your age will not live into their 40s. You and your neighbors and your political and popular leaders act as if nothing is happening.
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