All Posts Tagged With: "poverty"

You may have noticed that I’ve added a new graphic in my sidebar with a cow wearing a Santa hat. It’s a public service announcement for Heifer International, an organization that I’ve supported for the last few years because its innovative practical approach to addressing poverty in the world. What I like most about this charity is that when I make a donation, it becomes a gift that keeps on giving. Here’s a brief explanation from Heifer.org:

What would be the better gift for someone you love this holiday season — another present that gathers dust on a shelf? Or a donation that represents a heifer and training in its care, that brings health and hope to struggling families?

Better still, every gift multiplies, as the animal’s first offspring is passed on to another family — then they also agree to pass on an animal, and so on.

A good dairy cow can produce four gallons of milk a day — enough for a family to drink and share with neighbors. Milk protein transforms sick, malnourished children into healthy boys and girls. The sale of surplus milk earns money for school fees, medicine, clothing and home improvements.

And because a healthy cow can produce a calf every year, every gift will be passed on and eventually help an entire community move from poverty to self reliance. Now that’s a gift worth giving!

An Associated Press article about the organization summed it up this way:

The idea behind Heifer … is similar to the notion that it’s better to teach a man to fish so he can feed himself than to give him a fish that will feed him just once. One animal could eventually benefit an entire community.

Both as a family and as business owners, we have purchased Heifer gifts — like a water buffalo — in honor of family, friends and clients. We would then send a special card that explained the donation made in their name and what the gift meant. And when we’ve done this, the reaction by the recipients has been overwhelmingly positive, with many of them going out of their way to call us to express their sincere appreciation for such a unique and inspirational gift — something that happens less often with more traditional gifts.

As you’re considering gifts to give this holiday season, consider giving a gift that keeps on giving. Consider a gift from Heifer.

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This just plain irritates me. Jesus is not a Republican (or a Democrat). I believe with all my heart that He cares about more than just the abortion issue and the gay marriage issue.

Indeed, Jesus is pro-life, but pro-life is more than just about pregnancy and birth; pro-life extends beyond the womb and encompasses all the life issues each and every individual all around the world faces, including extreme poverty and obscene disparity of wealth, famine and hunger, genocide and war.

Jesus certainly cares about the sanctity of marriage, but that extends beyond the issue of a union between homosexual couples and encompasses the union and marriages of heterosexual couples, including fidelity and marriage “until death do us part.” Why do the divorce rates within the Christian Church so closely mirror that of divorce rates outside the Church? If fundamentalist Christians, like the gentleman in the video, care so much about the sanctity of marriage, why doesn’t he focus on the truest threat to the “traditional marriage” — rampant divorce rates among heterosexual couples who even occupy our church pews?

Do I condemn those who have been divorced? Absolutely not. I simply want the same standard of “sanctity” to apply to heterosexual couples as these Christianists want it to apply to non-heterosexual couples. I do not oppose civil unions between two adults, heterosexual or homosexual. Marriage is an institution that should remain within the religious context, and it can be defined by the respective religious institution.

What irritates and frustrates me most are that Christianists like this gentleman continue to reduce every election down to these two issues. And how successful has that proven to be. They’ve had eight years of a pro-Christianist presidency with control of at least two branches of government for the first six years. Look at where it has gotten us.

Has there been significant improvement in our nation and in the world with these two issues? Has the Christianist agenda really worked?

There are more issues than just these two that devoted followers of Christ should consider when voting this November. Failing to consider the other bigger issues — poverty, hunger, war, the Gospel message of faith, hope and agape love — is ignoring the larger messages of Jesus and the Bible.

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[Stepping down from my soapbox now.]

An editorial cartoon by Patrick Corrigan of The Toronto Star poignantly points out the misplaced priority of Congress dedicating time to the Roger Clemens controversy at the expense of much more pressing issues. Leave it to a Canadian to point out what (many) Americans seemingly fail to see.