It is Blog Action Day, October 15, when bloggers all around the world are reflecting on a common theme. This blog action day it’s poverty.
James, Jesus’ brother, picks up the family tradition of strongly speaking his mind when he writes:
If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:15ff)
Yes – let’s pray for those who are poor. Even light a candle for them in the virtual chapel here. But real prayer, if it is expressing our actual hopes and desires – will be expressed in action when it can.
So prayer by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Thirdly – a life of prayer, a lifestyle of prayerfulness leads naturally, inevitably to a simpler lifestyle – eroding our cravings, making us laugh at the ridiculous advertising we so regularly encounter that claims our life will be fulfilled when we have a…
So that’s three ideas on Blog Action Day 2008 for poverty:
- prayer and meditation
- generosity
- a simplifying lifestyle & laughing (together) at advertising
