Eyes Wide Open

Do you remember the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut? Tom Cruise plays a naive, morally-conflicted pediatrician who blindly enters an odyssey of sexual drama, nearly derailing his marriage just as he endangers his life. Kubrick's point is not subtle--it is hard to sympathize with those who simply ought to know better. There is no excuse for blindness when we have eyes to see.

Julie rang my bell this last week with the following proverb: "If you say, 'Behold, we did not know this,' does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?"(Proverbs 24:12)

People are facing imminent starvation in Somalia. I've written about this, briefly, before. I'm most certainly not writing to self-flagellate or to shame anyone. First of all, Jesus Christ came to enter into the suffering of the world. Further, because of what He did on the cross, I am both healed/forgiven for my blindness, and made to see.

My concern rests now with what my response must be to not only starvation in Africa, but darkness in my neighborhood. I will pray. I will attempt to cultivate relationships (much easier to do with my neighbor down the street than with my neighbor in Mogadishu). Do I also write a check? Do I hop on a jet to the Horn of Africa?

I pray that our action as Christ's people on earth will be more than something passive and second-hand. O God, show us the way we should go, that we would honor you and be faithful to your mission in the world.