Tonight I saw Isaiah 58:, a beautiful and hopeful film about the Church rising up to end extreme poverty. So many stories of lives around the world, our world, living in desperate places, many holding still to their faith. I left inspired. Heart-wrenchingly inspired.
I both love this and hate this, if I'm going to be honest.
I love the message, I love the stories of success. I love that people in affluent countries are mobilizing to reach out and share what they have. I love God and His ways of connecting all of us. And I love the meaning of Jesus-- that He was born into poverty, in a skeptical situation, and that He chose the message of love for the broken and rejected, which caused Him to Himself be broken and rejected for all.
I hate that this is our reality. I hate that this rips my heart into pieces. I hate that I have to make unselfish and unnatural decisions if I want to work in this for the rest of my life, staring at million dollar church buildings and walking around useless malls full of things I don't need (don't even get me started on TV commercials). And I hate that I judge. I hate that people are as broken as they are, and that the journey to healing is long, complicated, and will hurt me too. I hate the corruption of societies that makes doing good so difficult.
Something happens to me pretty much on a regular basis. I lose all sense of what is going on in my life here and now and it's like I'm taken outside of myself to see from an eternal perspective. (I've written about this before: my eternity moments). I realize that my life is truly "but a breath" and that there is SO MUCH TO DO. I don't know why I think about this... it's not normal. But it can be a gift. I don't easily get caught up in so-called unimportant things, but it also seems to make me fiercely blunt in conversations about those so-called unimportant things that most other normal people care a lot about. I sometimes hurt feelings and cause angry outbursts. But it's part of who I am. I can't separate my belief from myself. I can learn how to be humble and when to shut my mouth, but I cannot change the fact that I don't believe everyone should own a house, or drive a nice car, or save for retirement. Get over it.
Watching and hearing the stories of fellow human beings who do not have basic needs of survival just because they weren't born in a certain country or to a certain class of people is one of the most painful experiences of my life. And I want to "spend myself" on their behalf, not because of a guilt-conscious or because it will make me feel better-- because I have been given, so therefore I give. Because life means nothing with a whole bunch of stuff. Because God loves us so.
Or maybe just because.
Call me rant-y. I want to make the world better.
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