Don't Stop Giving

It 's the fallout that results a short time after any tragedy that really motivates people to act. They pull out their wallets to help the less fortunate, be them victims of 9/11, the typhoon-tsunami in Asia or Hurricane Katrina.

Those are all worthy causes but what normally happens is that people don't give more, they give differently. They stop giving to their normal charities and simply shift that money over. Most of those groups that depend on consistant funding to remain afloat see their accounts dwindle after a tragedy like Katrina.

I'm not saying don't give to the victims, I'm saying that we need to be sure that we don't forget about those who still need our support. Give sacrificially. Dig deeper.

Please, keep giving to your church, to campus house or CSF, to the local shelters (for animals and people) to the schools and little leagues. Don't forget them.

Friends and stuff

I’m trying to come to terms with my friendship with a man based almost exclusively on the fact that he has stuff that I want. We started meeting because I had some political questions that he had answers to. His wife and daughter were out of the country and he needed to vent some culture-shock stuff so we had tea.

Come to find out that they have some baby food that their daughter has outgrown so, sure, we can take it off their hands. Oh, and since they are leaving the country soon and have stocked too much food ordered through the embassy commissary, we get first dibs on purchasing their American toilet paper and sugar and ziplock bags and vegetable oil and…Would we be interested in buying an older computer? – No – but it comes with a media card and a satellite dish – Absolutely.

I genuinely like the guy but I doubt we’d have become friends if he didn’t have more than I did. Like the kid in the neighborhood with the Atari or ping-pong table that kids used to hang out with because he had all the stuff…(Isn’t that from Seinfeld? “He had a ping-pong table! I would have been friends with Satan if he’d had a ping-pong table.”). He and his wife just don’t seem happy here. They don’t seem to enjoy the people or the culture or the food or the weather. They seem like they’re just here to do a job. It’s sad.

On most days, this would be a “There but for the grace of God go I” or “What good is it if a man gains the whole world but loses…?” entry but what is most disturbing is that even as I view his life as unhappy, his purpose less fulfilling than mine, I find myself envious. I want to be able to have meat and cheese shipped in from the states on dry ice. I want to be able to get Hershey’s chocolate syrup whenever I want. I want a job that, at least by the title, appears prestigious. I want to know ambassadors and world leaders. I want a fountain in my front yard and a guard on the other side of the gate. I want the stuff he has.

So even though I’m truly happy, even though I love my jobs, even though I couldn’t ask for a better family, even though I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now, I still want the stuff of this world.

Some days I just feel shallow

Gas

For all those growling about the cost of gas:

Our price for regular: $6-7 per gallon. (If they have it.)

Stupid Katrina!!!