Blue Like Jazz

I was up late last night with a sick child. James ate a few too many cookies and had a little too much chocolate milk. It all made the return trip about 2:00 AM. He puked once and after that he was fine, but I couldn't sleep. He did manage to puke in the puke bowl, so I will give the little guy credit for that, but there is just something about a middle of the night illness adventure that puts a mama on red alert status.

Since I was up anyway I decided to do a little reading, natch. I had a fresh, new stack from the library and settled on Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller. I wish this book along with The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical and Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne could be read by every skeptic who thinks all Christians are heartless, money grubbing, right-wing fanatics. That there are many, many Christians actually struggling to be Christlike, to follow the example set forth by Jesus, but I digress........

I read a passage in Blue Like Jazz that really struck me. In this passage Miller had just been to a protest protesting Bush for "blindly supporting the World Bank.....and our policy toward Iraq."

"The thing I realized on the day we protested.....was that it did me no good to protest America's responsibility in global poverty when I wasn't even giving money to my church, which has a terrific homeless ministry. I started feeling very much like a hypocrite.

More than my questions about the efficacy of social action were my questions about my own motives. Do I want social justice for the oppressed, or do I just want to be known as a socially active person? I spend 95 percent of my time thinking about myself anyway. I don't have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself. I am not browbeating myself here; I am only saying that true change, true life-giving, God-honoring change would have to start with the individual. I was the very problem I had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read, 'I AM THE PROBLEM!'"  

Wow! How many times have I railed about the injustices of the world without actually doing anything to change the world. I remember going to Gulf War protests back in college because it was the cool thing to do. I've been to 'tea parties' because I really believe in freedom and liberty. I bitch and moan about the government as much as the next guy. I feel guilty when I see a homeless person. My heart breaks for the women of Afghanistan. But what do I do about it? Nothing. My church has a fantastic ministry I could be supporting, too. But I don't. Why not? I really don't know. I AM THE PROBLEM. But I can change that.

Wendy