Pens

"So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance. Truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty and enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, and He was appalled that there was no one to intervene; So his own arm worked salvation for him and his own righteousness sustained him."

So me and pens: I'm a little addicted. Those of you who know me know that my entire life is color coded. Each one of my classes has a color that they are "assigned". Now, this color is the pen color ALL notes must be taken in, and the folder for handouts must match the color. Furthermore, my book must be written in and underlined in that color and the highlighter used must also be that color. [Now if you think that's shameful, just wait.] So, I have mild OCD and I cannot stand "cheap" pens. These two things together work towards such a wondeful way of life...not so much.

I have at least $300 worth of pens in my apartment in large pencil bags in drawers. I cannot resist pens: I always "need" more. What's more, I always need expensive ones.

Patrick Dennis' classical charater Auntie Mame teaches people to embrace life & "Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" How right, & how wrong she is. Life is short span of time on a fallen world with scarce resources. The prevailing viewpoint of the American secular society [and sometimes even the American Christian community] is that God has blessed us with an abundance of resources [gracias por su ayuda John flippin' Locke] and we need not consider the scarcity of our resources in the context of our consumption patterns. The opportunity costs of my pens [besides the probably slave labor used in their construction, and the probably wasteful use of water used in their production] is the life of one AIDS free child, or as an aggregate, the legal cost of freeing three children from sexual slavery in Thailand. I'm sickened.

It's Been A While

It's been about a week since I've posted on this blog. I know, I know, I haven't been doing my duty to myself but I suppose I'll have to convince myself to get over it. :)

Well, I cannot even begin to tell you how beautiful the Law and Social Justice Conference was this weekend at Malibu. I stayed with the Caseys and I had my own room and my own bathroom and my own deck overlooking the Pacific, and I was so happy. The smell of the ocean has always calmed me, and the climate and the people remind me of home, even though it is indeed, so very very far away.

I'd like to take a moment to share with you something I heard this weekend which struck me to the very core. One of the panelists, Mary Ellen Burns, was a Catholic Sister with a Law Degree from Yale. She works in the inner city and frankly, she's one tough cookie. Anyway, she was talking about the parable in Luke of Lazarus and the Rich Man. Interestingly enough, as she pointed out, we don't know why the Rich Man was rich nor do we know why Lazarus was poor. One could just as easily have been a crook as the other. But Jesus doesn't tell us. He doesn't tell us, because he in fact doesn't care. Lazarus was a fellow human being, and crooked or not, the Rich Man is punished for ignoring his suffering - whatever the cause. You know why we got a savior? - because we needed one. We help and give because people need. Period. oh yah.