A Village of 100...

{Watch the Video}

Yesterday, like many other days, I looked down at my Tom's Shoe's and started reading the words that ran across their fabric. I am lucky. Did you know that if we shrank the world down to a village of 100 people, 43 would live on less than two dollars a day? That doesn't even cover my frequent Starbuck's runs. Or that 58 of them have parasites? 23 drink polluted water... I don't even drink tap water.

I began searching the internet for more information about this "Miniature Earth" project, and felt my chest tighten as I realized that I take a lot in my life for granted. I began to think about all of the children in the world who eat dirt because they have no food. When I was little, I remember asking my mom if I could take all of the homeless people home - they would live in my backyard, and eat carrots. Looking back this is an impossible idea, and extremely simplistic {give me a break, I was 7!} but it made me realize that I need to get back to this mentality. I need to help out more.

It hurts to think about these statistics. It's uncomfortable. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am connected to these people and they are connected to this universe, as am I. I don't know them, but I love them.

I was reading a blog yesterday and a woman was talking about how every Saturday morning, each member of her family gets a grocery bag and fills it with things that they do not use on a regular basis. Every Saturday they do this. I thought to myself.... wow, how do they have anything left after several months of this cleaning? Then I started thinking about the bags and bags of clothes my husband and I have in our closet that we haven't even unpacked yet. It's been almost a year. I need to get some grocery bags...

We can all do more to help. I hope that you watch the video and feel the same discomfort in your chest as I did while watching. We are all in this together, and nobody deserves to suffer or to live in fear.

We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude towards it. Uproot guilt and plant forgivness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate -- thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.
{Maya Angelou}