$2.00 per Day

Went down to the Blue Monday Coffee Shop today and ordered a small, skim latte and one of the cranberry-orange scones. The total cost must have been a bit under $5.00 for my morning treat; that's a fairly small part of the average $91/day that US workers receive.

When comfortably settled with my coffee and scone, I began to review materials from Church World Service for the Crop Walk fundraiser that is coming up on September 30th. They pointed out that almost half of the world's population lives on about $2.00/day/person. This means half the world addresses their hunger on the caloric equivalent of a dinner roll each day. Their available health care may be local herbs or band-aids, not even pills or a medical kit. If they can read, their library consists of perhaps a leaflet. The water they drink is often dirty and polluted--and must be carried long distances by bucket from source to home.

So I nibble on my delicious scone and think of the two or three billion people who are living without the benefit of even what I think of as my pocket change. The world is not a fair place, but it could be much, much better. The kingdom of God that Jesus envisioned certainly is. After my little treat, I came back to church and wrote a check for $200 to "NUMC" with a memo for Crop Walk. I hope that many of you will be doing the same over this next month, as the Crop Walk Day on September 30th approaches. John Wesley once wrote that personal generosity and justice for others are the ways that we "carve for ourselves".

National Relaxation Day

Today is National Relaxation Day. What more need be said?

Bridge 9340

Last evening, we learned of the collapse of Bridge 9340, the I 35W bridge across the Mississippi in Minneapolis. On television we saw images of the cars and trucks scattered and thrown by that fall. We felt the fear and distress of those who were caught there--and the grief and shock of their families and friends. We are reduced to silence, prayer, shock, tears and questions. For a little time, "...Our hands fall helpless. Anguish has gripped us"(Jeremiah 6:24). Soon enough, we will begin to rebuild; today, we are just aching together.

Letters, We Get Letters...

Dear Happy Pastor:

I heard in a review of the movie, "The Simpsons", that the most thought-provoking scene in the movie was when, at the time of some disaster, all the people in the pub ran to the church, and all the people in church ran to the pub. ? ? What theological explanation/comment do you have for this?

(Signed),
Should I Nip Some?


Dear SINS:

I haven't seen the movie yet, but why should I let that stop me from reviewing or commenting? I enjoy the image. Here's what I think about it: We are all, whether believers or seekers or atheists and agnostics alike, afraid that we have made the wrong choice in life, and that we may miss the good stuff because of what we have chosen. Hence the panicked flight toward the spiritual by those who have chosen a more secular path, and the flight toward the sensual by those who have chose a more disciplined, spiritual path.

Starting with Paul, and later Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and many other theologians, there has always been a push to enable people to seek and find God as the fulfillment of one's deepest desire or greatest happiness (even moreso than, let's say, wealth, security, careerism, sexual excess, or a few relaxing drinks of alcohol). The anthropological message to anxious, mortal, sin-prone human beings is, "In choosing the path of God, you have chosen what is better....You are not missing out on the best that our limited, only-once-around life has to offer."

(Signed),
Your Happy Pastor