Now I'm back at home, all alone, and trying to find my thoughts
About that old man, so inspiring but the TV's always on
And the phone, it won't stop ringing,
And these bills they keep on screaming
to pay for all the things that we have never really needed
And I wonder what he's doing right now
Maybe walking through his simple field thinking about how
God has blessed him so
A man, his bride, his children and his roses

-The Roses, by Caedmon's Call

With the plight of half the world's population living on $2/day or less, simplicity as modeled by Christ isn't simply a virture, but a mandate. As comfortable as ignorance may have been, Faith and I have robbed ourselves of such a luxury (or is it a malady?). With Haiti living in our memory and comandeering our future, we have to face such a statistic with heads bowed and penitent hearts in prayer, for our past and our current lifestyle convicts us of not only complacency and materialism, but negligence to our brother.

Despite the quiet void we've allowed with the absence of a TV (as described in the previous post), we still have the noise depicted in the song above--the bills that seem to scream and the phone that never ceases to ring.

Our prayer is that we move beyond trying to fix our thoughts on our "blessed" friends in Haiti walking through their "simple fields", to trying to find ourselves in those very fields.

With ignorance no longer eligible as an excuse, movement is the key for renewal.