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100 Toys

If the world had only 100 toys to play with, six children would own eighty of them and would not be very fond of sharing. It's hard when you start learning about the state of the world around you. It's even harder when you learn that you are one of the six.
I have grown up and lived in the Midwestern part of the United States all of my life. My interactions and experiences are so very different and removed from many of the realities that most people face on a daily basis. For instance, i have never visited the inner-city. I have generally never worried about walking down the wrong street. In my home town, Laramie Wyoming, most people do not lock their doors at night. I have had very few encounters of racial prejudice, and though i have gone days without eating when i was a child, they were only of a twenty-four hour duration. I was never kidnapped and forced to kill when i was a child. I was never sold into the black market as a sex-slave like so many women and children are in India and Africa. I have never had to play in a park while bombs were cascading all around me. I have never lost someone i loved to the AIDs virus, not to mention my entire family, village, or half the people on my continent. Though i was abandoned by my father when i was eleven years old, i was not abandoned by my mother or country because i was a girl or because my ethnic inheritance was Roma, or as we like to say, "gypsy". I have had the freedom to speak my mind against my government without fearing deportation to a concentration camp. As a woman i have had the privilege of voting, making my own money, refusing a man's sexual advances (this is extremely taboo in parts of Africa), and i get to choose to whom i will someday be married. I can turn on my kitchen sink and drink the water that comes out. I go to the bathroom in a porcelain toilet that uses a gallon of perfectly good water to wash away my own poo. While others in many places of the world are dying because of drought and have to poo right outside their door, if they have a door.
It goes on and on. And this is what i think about at night when i am falling asleep inside my well lit, well insulated, food stocked, warm, safe house (well not stocked, like maybe i have a can of soup and some crackers, oh yeah, and three eggs).
Doris Day says, "If you have two coats one of them belongs to the poor." And i really believe that. So why do i still own three coats and one hoodie? Good question.
I think a big part of it has to do with me being overwhelmed by all that is going on. And another part is that i feel so far removed from these situations that they seem to me like a movie, or a horrible story that someone made up. But they are not stories, they are realities for most of the world. It takes a lot of effort for me to break out of the american mindset of thoughtless consumption. It takes time and dedication to research the facts, and sort through the propaganda. And most of all it requires responsibility. I am held accountable for what i know and how i choose to act because of it. That is why there are three coats in my closet staring me down. The hoodie does not have eyes because it is too cool to get rid of.
Knowledge, knowing the truth of a situation, understanding the realities and the choices one can make because of this truth. I think it is of utmost importance that we are aware of what is going on in the world around us. Even if it is shocking, or painful or revealing. I believe all freedom begins with the truth. The truth about ourselves and the world at large. And i believe freedom is nurtured when we are aware of the truth of our situation and the choices that arise because of this truth. The narrower our vision becomes, the less we understand the choices available to us, the less we make wise decisions, the less we trust ourselves to know what is happening, the less we choose to care about outside our little worlds, the more we are willing to let someone else set the standard of what is right and wrong and what should be done about it. We get so tangled up in our busy little web of life and work and God-knows-what and end up believing we need more stuff. Because stuff is what will make the lonely go away. Maybe the lonely comes from being one of the six. Or of having so many toys and no one to play with. I often wonder how many of us know we have too many toys. It is easy to forget when you only socialize with the other Sixers.
So what do we do? Well, i suppose there are a billion things we could do. But what is really going to be effective? I think about this a lot. A big part of my heart wants to go live in Africa so i can be a part of the suffering and joy of the African people. Or maybe go to Romania and take care of Roma "gypsy" orphans. And for me that would be a great way to spend my life and share my toys. But i also have a plan until i do something in another country. A way to share my toys now so i can get better at it and be super good by the time i hit the African continent. Here goes... I would love to make hot chocolate and pass it out in the middle of my city, just to do it. Or invite my friends over for Thanksgiving, the ones that have no families to be with, or the ones that are crazy enough to be with me and go looking for lonely people on Thanksgiving day. Or celebrating Buy Nothing Day by having a fun parade and bubbles and face painting. Or by being a part of a band that plays music to inspire hope in people.
Now maybe you are not a musician, and you're allergic to bubbles or something like that. Great! That just means you're going to have to find some other way of sharing your toys with people. Most importantly, it is invaluable to share your heart, your life, your joy with others. It is what makes the world come alive with shouts of giddiness, like when we were kids playing a crazy fun game of Hide-n-Seek. I think if all of us Sixers had common moments of giddy joy we would remember that there are other kids in the world who might want to play with us.
I guess we'll see. In the meantime i will be passing out hot choco and looking for lonely, cold people to feed and give my coat to. Maybe i'll even get to meet you. Hope so!