Invisible Children and a poem

Yesterday I watched a documentary made by three, apparently average, college students (It’s amazing how powerful those without powerful positions can be) on the situation in Gulu, Uganda. The children there have to flee their villages at night to sleep in horrible conditions in the city to hide from a rebel army who seeks to abduct them and turn them into child soldiers through torture and brainwashing.

Here’s the link to the Invisible Children project to raise awareness and help for those in Gulu:
http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php

I'm enamored with the contrast of the plight of the people in Uganda (and many other places like it in the world) and the situation most of us Americans find ourselves in. With all this in mind I wrote the following:


Poverty Mauled

I don’t want to die, but have to because I sinned.
But God bled and let me in.
He died so I would, and then truly live.
Now I’m here and will be There with Him.

And until then, I’m not going to the mall.
An X-box and a new set of rims
Leaves children in Malawi with cholera cramps
And a shack of rusty tin.

To hell with the Abercrombie gloss,
And the custom homes,
(Starting in the “low 200’s”)
At Prestonwood, and Autumn Ashe.

To hell with the Charles Schwab commercials,
And the La-Z-Boy living room suits,
With 90 days same as cash.

Should we tell the pot-bellied 5-year-old in Darfur about
The last season of Friends now on DVD?
Do you think the Haitian squalor-water drinker
Might hear of our 80-gig ipods and perceive a tinge of greed?

Love gives and love bleeds.
Love loves to lavish the beloved,
But knows the proper trajectory of luxuries.
Love knows what the self does and does not need.

God bled and let me in.
By grace I’ll see Him.
Until then, I’m not going to the mall.

MM