Eat a good breakfast...then go out and save the world

Coming off the heels of a year full of work - and travel to - Haiti, then a disaster in Japan, and an earthquake in Myanmar, and several smaller-scale disasters in various countries around the world, I've started to feel a little...defeated? overwhelmed? Some days, I love what I do, and I love that I can have some kind of hand (albeit small) in engaging with the world on a global scale and maybe even helping some people who need a hand.


But ten years ago, my job would have been very different. Ten years ago, without Twitter, YouTube, Facebook (or MyFace as Jack Donaghy likes to call it), we wouldn't have been nearly connected with disasters in an in-your-face and up-to-the-minute kind of way.  Ten years ago, it was still heart-wrenching, but you didn't experience global humanity, and vulnerability, in the real, visceral way that I think we do today in our uber-connected world.


So, as I was thinking about my job...my calling...what the Lord wants from me in my life now or in the future...and what it means as Christians to "be joyful always" (1 Thessalonians 5:16), no matter if we're doing the laundry, caring for a sick child, struggling with circumstances in our life, or traveling around the world, I came across this blog post.


I don't think I could have written my life's philosophy (or at least PART of my "raison d'etre") any better than Ruth Reichl, former editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine, did recently on her blog:

There is no time, ever, in which a terrible disaster is not taking place somewhere on the planet.  And thanks to modern technology, we know all about it almost immediately. As I see it, we have a moral responsibility to respond to those disasters in the best ways that we can. Write letters, send money, do whatever possible to alleviate pain, end suffering and make the world a more just place. 

But in the face of ongoing disaster, it is also our moral responsibility to appreciate what we have.  That is why cooking good food for the people that I love is so important to me; in a world filled with no, it is a big yes. 

So eat a good breakfast. Be grateful for what you’ve got. Enjoy the sunshine while you've got it.  Then go out and save the world. 

New Mexico, 2009, Brian Blank