slumdog confessions

last night i saw "Slumdog Millionaire." yesterday afternoon i had a mani/pedi that cost $50. the contrast sickens me.

in my defense, the $50 was an exorbitant gift certificate from my dad & stepmother. for Christmas i had asked for a manicure gift card, which would have cost $15 at the place nearest my house. yet i ended up with fifty--and i had to spend it all at once. i wanted my nails to look nice for all the hand-shaking i will be doing this weekend at my scholarship event at Emory, but now i have a pedicure that no one will see. and i just sat there, feeling guilty while i was pampered. i've never enjoyed pedicures, it's just too weird for me for some poor person to be polishing & scraping & massaging my feet while i sit there reading a magazine or watching Oprah. and as i try & try to commit myself to Christ's call to selfless, humble living, i always seem to catch myself enjoying, or at least experiencing, a lifestyle that is luxiourious and extravagant and vastly unnecessary.

and then, of course, enter" Slumdog." how easy it is for us to forget that there are places in the world where people live in trash dumps and injustice reigns. while i sit in my massage chair with someone painting my freaking toenails, someone a world away sleeps on a pile of trash. where is the justice in that? what have i done to deserve anything better than the so-called slumdogs? why did God choose to create me as an American, while others were chosen to be born into the third-world? these are the questions that plague me time & again when i am snapped into a realization that poverty is real, suffering is real. when am i going to do something about it? when i move away from the neighborhood of $50 manicures & venti frappachinos? when i finish my graduate education that will cost thousands upon thousands of dollars? when i find that someone who is ready to embrace a lifestyle of 'less is more' and to move with me against the grain of American culture? i hate being in a place of stasis--is that even where i really am? i could forever make excuses about now not being the right time to embrace the lifestyle of Jesus Christ.

i want to thank my friends Betsey & Luke, and Kristen W. (and others of you) for being my examples of this lifestyle of less. your stories & experiences rock my world, and your strivings to truly live in accordance with Christ's call is nothing short of inspiring for me. i pray i would have the courage to one day take a similar step of faith.

"Jesus looked at him and loved him....'Go, sell everything you have & give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.' At this the young man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth." Luke 10:21-22