Waking Up, Mad.

My heart has always been broken for the poor.

For as long as I can remember I have been moved with compassion toward those in need. Lord knows, I have sent many prayers to the orphans, a happy thought to the depressed, a tear, a hug. To someone.

But today, that is not enough. The world is too upside-down.

It is not enough to sit on my leather couch and be moved to tears when I read about the war-torn families in Uganda. It is not enough, to walk past my sick, lonely neighbor and only smile and say “hi.” It is not enough to kneel in my garden and pull weeds and give thanks for the priviledged life that I have lived.

Today, I am bleeding mad.

Mad that I am eating a brownie for breakfast, while a girl in Malawi, has not had any bread for days. Mad that my daughter gets to sleep next to me, while another child hides in a closet. I am mad that I have let myself care more about what I’m eating, and wearing, and missing, than for the orphans in Mexico, who just got snatched away from their home, from sleep secure. From the only love they knew.

I am mad that it has gone this long, before I have come to my senses and given more than a fleeting thought to something other than my needs and my dreams and my lack and my success. Mad that it’s been so long since I ventured outside of myself, since I looked into the eyes of another and cared for their soul.

I am tired of living a nice, comfortable life. I’ve had enough of my selfish squanderings of grace.

I want to do something. I need to do something.  I must! Anything! Something that actually makes a difference.

So I pick up the swelling stack of papers that have been staring at me from the far side of the kitchen table. The ones that will open the door for a child to come in. I look at them and all the work that they represent, and then I let go, and the ink pours. I think about the change and the adjustment and the sacrifice, but I don’t even care. I sign my name anyway.

I’m in. I’m ready.

And I’m mad.

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