Monday, May 12, 2008

Meditations on the world as seen today

Here is a doomsday meditation. We've all probably heard about the cyclone in Myanmar. There are about 100,000 dead already and now the government is likely going to be the cause of much more death than the storm itself. Of course the tornadoes over the weekend that killed several people on my back door steps. There was an earthquake in China and there are at least 7,600 dead at the time of this writing and then I heard on NPR (that bastion of liberal thought) that there is a volcano in Chile's remote Patagonia area is erupting.

I can't help but wonder if these are part of the birth pangs that Romans talks about or if it is just the earth groaning under the weight of humanity or if it is just the way things are...It does seem to me like these things go in cycles though... like there doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on in the way of disasters and then all of a sudden bam, bam, bam... three or four in a row.

Of course these are things out of our control, but other things like the food shortages and all the craziness involved with that is more a mismanagement issue I think, or a sin issue... call it what you will. Greed and the polluted heart of unregenerate man has caused this one.

Still, there is a whole out there full of despair that seldom touches me. Even when I see it on tv or hear about it on the radio or the latest missionary tale of some third world country... it doesn't sink in often that they are talking about real people. God help me.

Anyway, today I feel a little more overwhelmed by it all. It is like God has spread my heart open a little and let me feel a minute part of what he feels. And there is a rising urgency to be more vocal, to be more active, to make sure that I am doing what I can and am supposed to... making sure that when I get to the end and meet my father face to face he isn't disappointed.

So this is today... the only one like it... the only one.