I am living with a guilty gratitude. It would be easy to be grateful to God if Katrina or Rita had simply fizzled before coming ashore. But they didn’t. They came in powerful and merciless, leaving thousands homeless and jobless. And it could have been us. Easily.
Friday morning I took my coffee cup and settled in the Lazy Boy in my grandmother’s front room on her peanut farm just outside of Floresville, Texas, south of San Antonio. I heard the local weather man describe Rita as the third most powerful storm ever to enter the Gulf of Mexico. At that time she was a Category Five with sustained winds of 165 MPH. The catastrophic damage she was capable of was incomprehensible. And she was headed on a trip up I-45.
I sipped my coffee and pondered what the future might hold. I recalled a conversation with Frank, a Katrina evacuee eating lunch at Clear Lake Baptist Church just a few days earlier. I’m guessing he was in his late fifty’s, a blue-collar worker from a Zatarain’s factory in New Orleans. He stood with his hands in his Levi pockets, looking down, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Last Friday,” he said quietly, “I had a job and a house. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I thought about something I said several times in reply to Katrina’s victims who expressed their gratitude for the way they were being cared for: “Well, but for a matter of miles, it could have been us. In fact, it could still be us. The hurricane season isn’t over yet.”
Now I sense a kind of guilty gratitude. I am definitely grateful to have been able to return to my home. But I do not think that God balanced the prayers of the people of Houston against those of the people of East Texas or Louisiana and decided to spare us.
A few weeks ago I shared this prayer at the close of the sermon. It seems appropriate now. This is the kind of gratitude I want to learn.
I do not thank thee, Lord,
That I have bread to eat while others starve;
Nor yet for work to do
While empty hands solicit heaven;
Nor for a body strong
While other bodies flatten beds of pain.
No, not for these do I give thanks;
But I am grateful, Lord,
Because my meager loaf I may divide;
For that my busy hands
May move to meet another's need;
Because my doubled strength
I may expend to steady one who faints.
Yes, for all these do I give thanks!
For heart to share, desire to bear,
And will to live,
Flamed into one by deathless Love—
Thanks be to God for this!
Unspeakable!
His Gift!
Friday morning I took my coffee cup and settled in the Lazy Boy in my grandmother’s front room on her peanut farm just outside of Floresville, Texas, south of San Antonio. I heard the local weather man describe Rita as the third most powerful storm ever to enter the Gulf of Mexico. At that time she was a Category Five with sustained winds of 165 MPH. The catastrophic damage she was capable of was incomprehensible. And she was headed on a trip up I-45.
I sipped my coffee and pondered what the future might hold. I recalled a conversation with Frank, a Katrina evacuee eating lunch at Clear Lake Baptist Church just a few days earlier. I’m guessing he was in his late fifty’s, a blue-collar worker from a Zatarain’s factory in New Orleans. He stood with his hands in his Levi pockets, looking down, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Last Friday,” he said quietly, “I had a job and a house. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I thought about something I said several times in reply to Katrina’s victims who expressed their gratitude for the way they were being cared for: “Well, but for a matter of miles, it could have been us. In fact, it could still be us. The hurricane season isn’t over yet.”
Now I sense a kind of guilty gratitude. I am definitely grateful to have been able to return to my home. But I do not think that God balanced the prayers of the people of Houston against those of the people of East Texas or Louisiana and decided to spare us.
A few weeks ago I shared this prayer at the close of the sermon. It seems appropriate now. This is the kind of gratitude I want to learn.
I do not thank thee, Lord,
That I have bread to eat while others starve;
Nor yet for work to do
While empty hands solicit heaven;
Nor for a body strong
While other bodies flatten beds of pain.
No, not for these do I give thanks;
But I am grateful, Lord,
Because my meager loaf I may divide;
For that my busy hands
May move to meet another's need;
Because my doubled strength
I may expend to steady one who faints.
Yes, for all these do I give thanks!
For heart to share, desire to bear,
And will to live,
Flamed into one by deathless Love—
Thanks be to God for this!
Unspeakable!
His Gift!
Amen. Amen.
2 comments:
Robert,
Could you repost those world wealth stats you used Sunday?
Thanks!
Brian
Here is the information I have. Is this what you wanted? rrc
Poorer Americans give a greater percentage of their income to charity. In 1998, those who
earned under $10,000 gave 5.2 percent,
earned $10,000 to $19,999 gave 3.3 percent,
earned $75,000 to $99,999 gave only 1.6 percent.
"The New Philanthropy,"Time (7-24-00); submitted by Jerry De Luca, Montreal West, Canada
Average household contributions to charity in 1995: $1,017.
Percentage of households that did not give to any charity in 1995: 31.
Percentage of income given to charity by people with household incomes under $10,000: 4.3.
Percentage of income given to charity by people with household incomes of $40-50,000: 1.3.
Percentage of income given to charity by people with household incomes over $100,000: 3.4.
Gallup Organization for Independent Sector, cited in Chicago Tribune and Omaha World-Herald (10/10/96). Leadership, "To Verify"
If we could shrink down the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people ... with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like this:
There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western hemisphere (North and South), and 8 Africans.
51 would be female; 49 would be male.
70 would be non-white; 30 white.
70 would be non-Christian; 30 Christian.
50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people and all 6 would be citizens of the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing.
70 would be unable to read.
50 would suffer from malnutrition.
1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth.
Only 1 would have a college education.
No one would own a computer.
Found on the Internet, Christian Reader, Vol. 34
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