1.17.2010

Follow that impulse ...

Our hearts have been heavy--as I'm sure yours have been too--at all the news coming out of Haiti. Both the total amount of destruction and the proportional amount--the % of Haiti's population affected--are overwhelming. Our pastor said something this morning that struck me--she prayed that we would follow our impulses in responding to this situation, follow the law written on our hearts. What an odd thing to pray, I thought, until I remembered how many times I have witnessed or heard of a tragedy and felt that immediate impulse to do something, but then haven't. Either life and its daily duties got in the way or else reason did: "my contribution won't matter", "whom do I give through? who will use the money responsibly?", "someone else will know what to do."
But this time, I'm following that impulse that says give. And also the one that says don't take your life for granted. Having a toddler forces you to appreciate the little things, but we're trying to do so all the more these days. Today we were thankful for:
  • an early morning walk through the aviary
  • an outdoor table at our favorite neighborhood Japanese place
  • finding a shaved mango ice stand mere blocks from our flat 
  • a borrowed sewing machine to make a slipcover for our ugly inherited couch 
  • Finn's impulse towards dirt, rocks and sticks--we're doing our best to raise a woodchuck, even here in Hong Kong.       




May we, today and every day, follow our impulses, especially those towards generosity and love and gratitude.

1 comment:

JFo said...

This comment is not about this post but about the move to blogger/blogspot. I'm shocked. I've just gotten sick of blogspot for my own blog and was thinking "why didn't I use wordpress like we do for our work blogs?"

You really felt restricted on wordpress, eh?

Also, my google reader doesn't seem to want to actually subscribe to yoru blog on blogger, which is ironic since Google, um, owns blogger. Sigh.