Laurie Cook

President/CEO

The task at hand was to find a book to put menus and recipes from meals served around the wedding of a friend’s daughter. Since there were guests from out of country being housed there were 4 menus and 29 recipes to be remembered and celebrated.

While there we ventured into the food produce section. The great part of shopping at Walmart a short time after opening is that everything is so neat, the aisles seem so big and it’s all so full. At that time of the morning the produce section is so impressive, everything full and colourful.

But standing there admiring and appreciating the beautiful scene I began to think of abundance and then I couldn’t help but contrast with parts of the world we serve.

I thought again about this as I looked at a picture of a woman preparing food in a refugee camp in Northern Kenya. She had no need to choose a recipe. This family had just received rice, beans, oil, salt and sugar and were preparing their “first meal in several days”. Those ingredients made a meal that “was the best I have had in a year. I was satisfied”.

This Christmas while you’re shopping in a grocery store or even sitting at home working through recipe choices, stop and reflect. My advice is to first be thankful and secondly be thoughtful.

And as an afterthought, decide whether or not you’re satisfied.

I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G.K. Chesterton.

When I read this, the pain in my side struck and I said “OUCH!”

               But let’s try a moment of True Confessions. What I complain the loudest about, I do.

So what’s that all about? Well, here’s the Breaking News, I am often a very impatient individual. But that appears to be just the symptom of what the underlying problem really is. Too often I look at things and believe that everything should line up perfectly for my convenience. For that to happen it means that I expect people to understand this and act accordingly. They should generally yield to what suits me and understand that it’s ok for me to do what they in turn shouldn’t do in an effort to achieve my goal.

While driving I’ve contemplated a variety of solutions to red light running, and these vary depending on my level of frustration. They range from a meaningful contact with my 400,000 km Nissan all the way to support for traffic cameras at intersections.

But back to the confessions, I realize that the best place to begin is to clean up my own act, knowing that if even a few of us started doing that life would be more tolerable. And who knows, it might catch on. Before you say it, I know that I might have to put up with the horn from the guy behind me who is firmly committed to the pursuit of his convenience.

In the fight against poverty there are a great many big issues that are being wrestled with such as homelessness, unfair trade practices, the increasing gap between rich and poor, climate change in developing countries and the national/individual problem of greed.

But sometimes we need to pause and look at our own sphere of activity and influence and decide to shape up.

First you react by trying to imagine the horror and both physical and emotional pain of the event as your world exploded. But then as you realize that those people become engulfed in shock, the stark reality hits you that many will be buried for long periods of time until heavy equipment arrives to roll away the massive stones that have entombed them.

This unfolding tragedy is an assault on our senses, our faith, and everything that keeps us human.

There are so many images, sounds and statistics that overwhelm us with the extent of the human tragedy. But as we were working through this in the early stages yesterday, contacting program and field partners, rallying the support of our constituency and trying to communicate with on the ground personnel, I sensed that a small voice was whispering, crying in a small part of my brain. As I listened with my heart, I realized that there were many voices. It was the realization that there wasn’t just a massive earthquake. There wasn’t just massive infrastructure loss. There wasn’t just large numbers and estimates of deaths.

The voices are real people with stories of families, friends, communities and churches. They lived and breathed, loved and were loved.

Over the past year we have all been engrossed in defending ourselves in the wake of a tough economic downturn. Some suffered through job losses, pension devaluation and for a few, even more difficult times.

My sense is that through this year our focus was largely turned inward, concerned about our future, trying to plan and trying to protect our lifestyle and things.

Maybe Haiti will set us free — from ourselves — for awhile.

"It was an opportunity for me having had the chance to share about India and the work of my organization. It was interesting to also learn about the lives of Canadians, which is so different from us. People were nice and supporting but I feel sad to see all the potatoes and fruits wasted in the field, in the storage house, processing unit and on the plate. I wish I could take them all home and distribute here to the hungry people."

But an impending, “milestone” birthday (which by the way I have cancelled) has collided in my consciousness with the recent funerals of Ted Kennedy and an acquaintance as well. The column written by Jim Wallis of Sojourners is a wonderful read when it comes to the subject of a legacy  http://blog.sojo.net/2009/09/03/faith-is-about-redemption-the-life-of-ted-kennedy/ I would encourage you to make sure you follow his advice and read what Kennedy’s son also wrote.

As I sat in the pews listening to the summary of a life well lived, words spoken about a relative of a close friend, I was also struck with the thoughts of the legacy we leave behind, regardless of whether or not we like to think about such things.

After the service I found myself, eating something and chatting with a friend about the same age as me. We found that we were both wondering what people might end up saying at our funerals. I admit this is a subject that only a couple of people facing an aforementioned milestone would be prompted to have.

The question was actually quite provocative and somewhat daunting. So much so that we decided that which ever one of us went first the other would stand up at the funeral and lie.

Seriously, if we have been paying attention at all to the principles of our faith, a reasonable legacy should prevail. Ours may not reach the level of exposure that Ted’s has and maybe the recalled list of our deeds will not have been that outstanding either. But I trust that through the journey we will have touched others in ways that will have brought lasting results.

I loved the title of Jim Wallis’s article, Faith is About Redemption.  

Legacy – he summed it up for me when he said:

“…..who, though sorely tested by adversity and plagued by his own moral shortcomings, found a way to overcome his personal flaws and pain to achieve extraordinary things. But (our names here) was even more than that. His life was also the classic Christian story of redemption, of being saved from sin by faith, grace, and love, and by being faithful to the commands of Christ: “As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.”