8.30.2005

Right now people are suffering and dying and suffocating in their attics. I can't stay away from the TV, even though I hate it. The people need to know that we are with them. That the whole country and the whole world is with them right now.

Here are the links to the Red Cross and to the Salvation Army.

It is all too horrible to even believe.

| link | Site Feed

8.26.2005

I have been taking part in a discussion over at my buddy Lonnie's weblog, Lonbud.com, you can get to it over in my sidebar. It's called I Just Have to Say. Excellent thought going on over there almost every day. But more on the Pat Robertson thing, I thought about this this morning:

There was a lot of God-encouraged violence in the Old Testament while He was helping Israel to escape from Egypt and become set up as a free people in a new land. But that was before the new covenant of Jesus Christ's body and blood. And That is what the new testament is about, the Christianity of following Jesus and His teachings. The Bible can be interpreted to say whatever you want it to say on a lot of points. Murder is not one of those. It is very clear on Murder. And it is very clear on Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. The loud Christian voices of today sometimes interpret the Bible so that their God says what they want Him to say. That is the scary thing about ever claiming to know the will of God. How could a human know without a doubt what the will of God is? We can't. So like one of the other commentors said, you pray to your God and you do what you believe to be right and what you believe to be God's will for you and you accept with humility your limited understanding of all things holy, and you don't force your idea of the will of God onto other people as law written in stone. Unless, like Thou Shalt Not Kill, it was one of the ten laws that were in fact written in stone.

| link | Site Feed

8.25.2005

Oh Pat Robertson.

As a very liberal Christian, I am once again dismayed by the fact that the only "Christian" voices that scream out at us from the media are angry and bitter and self-rightesous and surely wrong. I go to a church full of people, who BECAUSE of their love for Christ and his teachings, feed the homeless, protect the orphaned and widowed, pray for peace in all lands, respect the rights of others and would never ever call for something as against the very basic and rudimentary "Thou Shalt Not Kill" that we all know to be true and sage advice from our God. While I am also taught not to judge others and try very hard not to, it gets harder and harder to adhere to that when our so called "religious leaders" are calling for the killing of another human being, another of God's creations whom He loves.

| link | Site Feed

8.13.2005

God help them.

After a drought and the worst locust invasion in 15 years, there are an estimated 3.6 million people facing a severe hunger crisis in Niger right this minute. HUNGER STALKS NIGER / World Slow To Respond After Drought And Locusts Ruin Crops was on the front page of our paper today, and the pictures took my breath away. A one year old the size of a 5 month old, a living skeleton with arms the diameter of a pencil and a fully visible ribcage. My stomach was full of sushi, and a bag of tortilla chips sat nearby. Oh God, what can we do?

We can donate money to Unicef, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, International Red Cross. There are links to all of these agencies' websites in the Chronicle story. It doesn't take much to help a lot of children there. The United Nations estimates that there are 200,000 children suffering from malnutrition in Niger right now. Can you even imagine? Were you ever hungry as a child? I wasn't. I ate snacks all day and then would sit at the dinner table pouting because my mom and dad would *make* me take four bites of everything before I could get up and play with my brother. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a child and not be able to stand up much less jump, run, swim, do cartwheels, spin around in circles, roll down hills? To be so weak that you just ignored the flies that were congregating on your open eyeballs? Can you imagine being a mother and never hearing your child laugh? It cuts me to the heart. It hurts to think about it.

At a Doctors Without Borders medical center set up in the city of Maradi, hundreds of mothers sleep outside every night, holding their lethargic children, waiting for them to be seen, and praying that the doctors will admit them into their care. And the malaria season hasn't even begun yet.

"The response has been slow from the international community." The U.N. World Food Programme has put out a plea for $81 million and has received $26 million. We have a responsiblity here.

Send some love to the children of Niger.

| link | Site Feed