I need a third cup of coffee

Originally posted September 2, 2007 No, I am not a madman, just a mad man, angry at most, cynical of all, ready to retire to a small island in the Bahamas just to leave it all behind. What have we done to our world, to Christianity, to relationships, to the oppressed, to the church? I am torn between a desire to escape from it all (if that were possible) and a yearning to make it all right (certainly not humanly possible). For example, we deal with some of the poorest of the poor in the ministry God has entrusted to us. These are people that live on less than $2 a day while we as Americans live on $70 a day and complain about that. We gripe about property taxes when most of the world has no place to call their own. Gas prices drive us nuts while the majority of the world walks to whereever life takes them. Our daily confusion is WHAT to wear and WHERE to eat when so many have one set of tattered clothes and wonder if they will eat today. Want to experience part of my frustration? Try talking to someone in the U.S. about the above and see how quickly the conversation dies. Want to see your e-mail content go way down? Send an e-mail to all your address list asking for help in feeding and clothing the third world. Want to understand why escape to nowhere feels like a good idea? Take a look at the needs of the world just a few miles off our own coast, realize those needs could be met by the Church in our own country without great sacrifice, and then study how much is given by the average local church to do so. Oh, well, forgive my venting on this Sunday morning. I think I'll go to my walk-in closet to see which of my shirts I will wear to church today before joining friends at Chili's for lunch...