The Irony of Gratitude

It's odd to me that we spend a day giving thanks for what is precious, and then the very next morning our culture is all set up for Black Friday (which sounds grim even though I guess it's not meant to be)....where we are all meant to rush out as early as we can and as maniacally as we can to BUY things. So we were grateful for one day, for all those intangibles, but then the very next day this American culture is telling us: better get ready to WANT all the things you don't have, that you wish you had! Kind of ironic, right?

I hope access to people through technology will bring us much closer to the lives and stories of people from all around the world, and so we can pause for a moment and just think: what is important? What is really going to rescue this world from despair, from economic downturns that crush people? It's not going to be running into a WalMart and literally crushing someone (which happened in New York on Friday). It can't be.

Instead, what if it were us listening to a story told by a teacher in Kenya, a story of her life in a small rural village, and coming into the city of Nairobi to teach in a school for HIV/AIDS orphans, and how she comes to love these children and how she teaches them how to read and write and laugh again.

What if it were that?