Raisins vs. Midwest Floods

My priorities are clear.  I know what they ought to be.  But I also see very clearly in my actions what is actually going on.  A sizable chunk of this and neighboring states are underwater.  Few lives have been lost, but many have been ruined.  And I want raisins.

Human suffering matters.  I care.  God cares.  People care.  But I do not care as much as I ought to.  At the end of the day, the only human suffering that really matters to me is my own.  My blood sugar is getting low and we are almost out of raisins.  This is a problem.

But there are two bigger problems.  1) Iowa is covered by waves of mud, not amber waves of grain right now.  And 2) I don’t really care.  Maybe it’s the distance, or the overstimulation of my senses, or the fact that my news source is CNN without audio while I’m at the gym.  I don’t know.  But the bottom line is that right now raisins are vying with the suffering of my neighbors for first-place in my consciousness… and the raisins are winning.  God, help me.

Second-hand Tragedy

Sometimes I think I feel too much. A skyscraper crashes or a friend of a friend dies, and I take it personally. I didn’t know anyone in the Towers, and I don’t even know my friend’s friend’s name, but I know that I have lost something.

It’s a bright, cool summer’s day, all the more bitter for its beauty. Like the spring day when I visited Auschwitz. Why is the grass so green? To taunt me, to distract me, to give me hope? Or is it just there?

Life is beautiful, but this life is full of death, and that is something that I will always take personally.

What the hell is wrong with me? Am I the only one who’s sane? Or is this just a small taste of how the heart of God feels all the time?