Perspective

I spent a great evening with friends, was in a good mood, and returned home to discover my roommate staring blankly at our kitchen sink, filled with some of the most disgusting water I've ever seen, and informing that me it seemed to have backed up.

Perfect.

Exit warm, happy, I just cuddled a baby for the second straight evening feelings.

I told her we needed to scoop the water out of the sink and dump it down the toilet, so that we could put draino down the drain.  She wandered off, and left me to clean up the mess she made (I guess I blame her a little.  For months I've been warning her that she needed to not let all that food go down the drain, and it seemed somehow fitting that on a day when I'd done no cooking or dishes, the final clogging came.)  I emptied two and a half dish basins of filthy out of the sink and down the toilet, poured draino in, and waited.  Nothing.  I've put more in, but I'm not hopeful.  I've told my roommate that she needs to phone or email our landlord and let him know (and also tell him that the bit of water remaining in the sink has corrosive draino in it!)

Let me be clear that while outwardly I handled the situation well, inwardly I was pretty ticked off.  I wonder sometimes if it's a New Zealander thing, because both of my roommates have been from New Zealand, and they seem to just put everything down the drain (leading to my current skills in unblocking tub and sink drains!)  I don't ever remember having a blocked drain in 24 years of living with my parents, but I've had at least 3 while living with the Kiwis.  And, I've warned them repeatedly, speaking with my current roommate even just this week about not letting crap collect in the sink and go down the drain.  I was fuming as I cleaned.  I'm still a little mad now.

And then, I sat down at my computer.  Seems some of the Canadians killed in Haiti are connected to me via their connections with a very dear friend of mine.

Perspective.

Maybe a blocked kitchen drain, even one that was much warned about, isn't worth quite so much anger and energy and effort given the devestation in Haiti, given the hundreds of thousands who are grieving that those they love have had their lives cut short, given so much other destruction.

I read this blog post that Anne Jackson wrote, and related a little.  Getting starbucks anyway.  Feeling numb.  Speaking passionately about anti-poverty issues, and then not quite knowing what to do.

I added a Red Cross button to my sidebar.  An easy way to give.  As soon as I'm paid on Friday, I'm going to give as well.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about perspective, about a blocked kitchen drain being a pretty minor thing in light of collapsed buildings, and dead loved ones.

And I'm praying.  With words, and with the cries of my heart that I trust the Spirit to know and hear and carry to the Father on my behalf.