I made a hasty decision the other day. Perhaps it was because of my current studies with Alexis. In my mind suffering and poverty are very fresh. I feel like I have been to Cambodia and seen the suffering that I want to end. But I took a cousin some groceries and hand me downs that my children grew out of. I have been around her children a few times and seen their faces. There is a grave look in the eyes, something that expresses poverty. Her husband had some finances cut and I knew they were struggling. Upon arriving to their home She had prepared her children a potato for dinner. No, not a baked potato with all the wonderful toppings, a simple, baked potato. To accompany this potato was some watered down powder milk from her food storage. There was a time when this same cousin drove miles to my home to bring me a meal when my first son was born. The meal consisted of 6 homeade wheat rolls, 6 small baked potatoes and two oranges. In her humble way she was giving me her best, no doubt her widow's mite. When I purchased some groceries and invited my children to donate they did so and it became a family service project. An array of produce, bacon, eggs, diary products,sausage, pepperoni, two chickens and bags of whole grains (oats, wheat, and beans)filled our car. For a small moment I had the opportunity to be a miracle giver and see the light in the children's eyes and they recieved some things I am sure they rarely get, possibly never had.
Classic literature has a way of changing you. That is the entire point of reading a classic-it changes your character filling you with ambition to change and better the world around you. Maybe I can't help those Cambodians I read stories about with Alexis but I can help someone in my small corner of the world and in a small way Peace fills me.
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