Thursday, January 20, 2011

What am I willing to do

So, I haven't blogged in like, years. I used to be so good about it during the adoption process. But lately, I've been having thoughts that Facebook just can't contain or express. Must. Be. Heard. or maybe Must. Run. Mouth. :) I always had a problem with conduct grades as a kid.

Anyways, I just saw this quote and it spoke to me and it also jogged a memory.

"Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought it or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little even.
~Daniel Berrigan

When Jeanene and I were in Ethiopia getting my little handful, Piper, we were driving, leaving, I think. We came up to a stoplight and there was a man laying against a tree. We had a small grocery bag with a bunch of fruit and crackers that we weren't going to be able to take with us, but felt guilty throwing away. Ordinarily, it would have been stuff that we would have done just that. We rolled down the window and motioned for the man to come to us. He could barely get up. People just sleep along the road and in the narrow medians, just a small swerve from death. Parapalegics are EVERYWHERE. There are no wheelchairs or crutches. They are just dragging themselves around. Can you imagine? But I digress...we handed him the crackers I think, first, and he took them eagerly and kind of waved and started to walk away and then we realized, he probably wasn't too picky an eater and gave him the whole bag. He kept waving and nodding his head and started to eat immediately. And then we drove off. I saw a starved man's face then.

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