Freewrite - I wonder

It's in that moment, when I see something that stirs my heart. The girl fighting cancer since she was born, the young teenager forced into sex slavery, or the homeless man around the corner that causes something to stir inside of me. Every action demands a response. In those moments, I have a choice. My heart cries out for the injustices in the world, but what do I do? Seeing an injustice demands a response, emitting questions into my conscious-stream of what am I going to do?

Maybe that's why people quickly change the channel when they see something awful on the news or turn the other cheek when they see the eyes of a homeless person zoning in. Have you ever looked eye to eye with a homeless man before? The need and desperation in their eyes. Yet it's so much easier to tune it out by putting on a set of earphones and turning the music louder on the iPod, pretending that you never saw the person. I knew you saw the person. The man was in plain sight on the street, holding his cup filled with change and a couple dollar bills.

And I know your heart breaks too when you see a person without legs struggling or hear stories about a 6 year old girl who's forced into prostitution. You grieve and say somebody should do something and then continue to live the hedonistic life that America feeds to you. Yea go ahead, fill yourself with more clothes, dreams of new cars and a big house. Continue to say that you're going to hook-up with the next b*tch and trophy her to your friends, making yourself look more manly. Meet your weekly quota of going to church on Sunday and occationally donating $10 to some charity, thinking that's all God demands of you.

I'm being judgemental and hypocritical because I am no different from you. I easily can tune out the problems of the world by hiding underneath a sea of Banana Republic clothing and my UCLA engineering degree. I can say that I'm doing something by obtaining a bi-weekly paycheck with a comma in it. I can say I'm significant by the car I drive or by the house I own, but still I know that something lingers inside of me. Something more lingers inside my heart, and I bet it lingers in yours too because the life you hide under is the path you didn't want to take, but took by convenience. The normal path that society treasures. Maybe your friends and parents are proud that you became the stereotypical doctor, lawyer, or engineer, but you long for more.

I wonder at the end of the day if I will live in a vicious cycle. Something that catches my eye gets drowned out by the superficiality of the world. I know it's tough and burdensome to take on the world's burdens. I wonder if I ever have the capacity or the compassion to even think about people who are suffering while I type on my Samsung netbook, lying in a cozy home.

Jesus sat with the leapers, the blind people, and the outcasts. He freaken ate with them and saw the crowds with compassion. And that's where the disconnect happens. What caused Jesus to do it? What was in His heart and mind to do the things He did? Why am I not like that?

And so I don't know where to go from here. I could continue living the life I'm living, pretending to be oblivious to the world or go do something about it. Lord, help me.