October 18 , 2009

While eating lunch at Firehouse Subs in West Columbia Tuesday, my son and I watched a CNN report concerning a young teen near Ft. Lauderdale, who had been cruelly burned by a group of teens over a $40 video game.

“How do I get over being angry about this?” Tyler asked me. “You don’t”, was my answer. “Next week and the next something else will happen as ugly and heinous as this and it will be all over the airwaves.” Silently I thought, “And I will say, Thank God it isn’t someone I know.”

I was shocked and saddened by my scurrilous silent statement.

It reminded me of a quote from Kathleen Norris’ book I read last winter Acedia and Me where she cited former preaching professor Fred Craddock’s definition of acedia: What we casually dismiss as mere laziness is the ability to look at a starving child… with a swollen stomach and say, ‘Well, it’s not my kid…’ or to see an old man sitting alone among the pigeons in the park and say, “Well… that’s not my dad… it is that capacity of the human spirit to look out upon the world and everything God made and say, “I don’t care.” P. 114-15).

The temptation to stop caring and to stop making an effort is always there.

Being tuned in to the world’s 24/7 news can leave us in a constant state of agitation as we are demanded to care about what is passing through the news at the time. Whether it is the suicide bombing on Wednesday in Pakistan, or Rush Limbaugh’s failed attempt to be a minority owner of the St. Louis Rams – all of these can so fill our minds that we get so overloaded with issues and problems we become too flustered to care.

Turning off the media outlets for goodly periods of time is a good thing – turning our thoughts to this beautiful world and other people is a good thing.

As we begin our Stewardship Campaign this Sunday you will hear some of our Ashland folks share how they share their gifts with the world.

Come to worship Sunday and hear Beth Wilkinson share her experiences in Haiti as a United Methodist Volunteer in Mission, as she has assisted ophthalmologist Dr. Hal Croswell.

I am grateful for all of the Ashland folks who take the time to show compassion and caring, and hope this will continue.

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. Albert Schweitzer