Which Rock Chick Are You?

I love PJ Harvey. I'm just glad I didn't come out as Courtney Love or something.

I went to Tecate, Mexico yesterday to help out with a health fair. As much as I knew that there was poverty in the world, it was truly an eye opener yesterday. It felt so good to do something for the people, but it also left me with a feeling of overwhelming sadness. It's so sad that we all take for granted all that we have. The people don't even have the simple luxury of being able to shower every day, wear clean clothes, to eat warm food....the list goes on and on. At the least, I know I am thankful for having chosen a profession where I can do something that counts for the people. I am just hoping that God gives me the strength to become the best dentist I can be, the success in this life so that I may share whatever God given skills I have to the benefit of those who cannot help themselves, to those who are locked into a lifestyle by a power that is greater than themselves. To look upon hundreds and hundreds of eyes who could benefit by the services provided by my hands really inspires me to be something better than I am today. It breaks my heart to see kids walk around in such ragged clothes, shoeless, toothless...and knowing that it will probably never get better for them. One little boy came up to one of our workers and told her, "At night, the scorpions and spiders come out and bite me." Here I am, sitting in a luxurious house, in front of my $2000 computer, chatting away. I have the liberty to think about my life. I have the liberty to decide what I am going to be. I have the means to become who I want to be. Why am I so lucky? Sometimes we spend too much time sitting around thinking and thinking and thinking because of our liberty to do so that we lose our way, and become frozen in a world that exists only in our own minds as opposed to doing something that manifests itself in the world outside of ourselves. I know I am definitely guilty of doing such things. I think the eyes of the poor, the lonely, and the hungry are always upon us, but we always turn around and ignore them. It's so much easier to pretend that they are not there than to acknowledge that they are. And when I finally turned around to look them eye to eye yesterday, I was heartbroken. As they realized that we were giving out something so seemingly trivial to us such as bags of rice and beans, toothbrushes and toothpaste, health screenings, the crowd just became bigger and bigger while I became smaller and smaller if that makes any sense whatsoever. I can't help all these people alone. In a book I bought about mother Teresa, she was quoted as saying, "It's not that there isn't enough food in the world to feed all the people, it's just that it isn't shared." Well, it's something along those lines. Here we are, Americans, just a border away, sitting in our homes and getting fat. As we deal with our greed, our sloth, our lust, feeding and feeding our selfishness, our neighbors are becoming sicker, poorer, and hungrier. I know we are those chosen by God to make a difference. But like I said, it is so much easier to turn our backs on them than it is to face the reality of the all the disparity there is in the world. I am thankful for God's grace, for my family, and for my friends. And I sincerely hope that I will continue to be inspired by those around me to make a bigger difference in this world than I ever would alone.