October 5th randomosity

I’m currently reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, which may be the most depressing book I’ve read in a long while.  It’s really good, I am about halfway through, but it’s just SO SAD.

Sadness is a running theme for me these last few days.

I spent time at the local homeless shelter/soup kitchen last night, and I plan to go back soon and make it a regular habit.  As much as it’s nice to do things for other people, there’s some greed in this new venture of mine.  I think we need to give back to the world, it helps to put our own lives into perspective.  We often have everything we need and then some, and still feel unhappy. We still want more.  The latest gadgets and a closet full of clothes and a fridge full of food and a handful of great friends aren’t enough.  No, our health and our jobs and our pets who greet us at the door, those aren’t enough. 

We are such a greedy society.  I’ve often felt this in my life, but it hit me the hardest when I was in Belize a few years ago.. people who live in what would qualify as a lean-to, with walls that don’t meet and no real windows and dirt yards with happy kids running around playing amongst the chickens. Waving to us with a smile in our cozy air-conditioned bus as we passed by.  As I sat there with a miserable 7 year old (at the time) who was unhappy because we weren’t going swimming until later, I realized the full impact of what kind of people we are, how unknowingly selfish we are.

I took the now 11-year old child with me to the shelter, and she’ll be accompanying me on every future visit because this is something we’re doing as a family.  She can pout because I limited her text messages, or she didn’t get the new pair of sneakers she wants even though she’s already gotten 3 new pairs of shoes since school started a month & a half ago.  She can pout because we’re having chicken for dinner for the 2nd day in  a row, she can slam her door because I asked her to turn down the TV (with cable) in her room full of non-essential belongings.  But she can’t deny that her life is way more comfortable than those children at the shelter, who are staying in a room with their siblings and their mom, limited to seven outfits apiece, all donated items.  Their toys are shared, in a hallway.  They eat 3 designated meals a day, and there is no choice in what is served, it’s whatever the kitchen has received from donations.   They eat what they are given because they are hungry.  They wear what’s in their closet because it’s the only way they’ll be clothed.  They don’t have an iPod, cell phone, laptop and cable television.  Yet they greet everyone with a smile, because they are thankful for a full belly, warm clothes, a bed to sleep in at night.

I end this with a quote from Minor Myers, Jr:

“Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.”

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