This morning I woke up and made some pancakes. Before I started, I wanted to put on something to listen to before I started, just loud enough for me to hear but also just quiet enough to not wake the sleeping roommates. As I was flipping though my CD case, I came upon my
Caedmon's Call Share the Well album. I bought it four years ago when I was a freshman, and it still remains one of my favorite CDs of all time.
So I threw it in our stereo and started making pancakes. The album was inspired by the group's trips to India, Brazil, and Ecuador. They decided that it was important to incorporate the different cultural qualities into their music. As well as inviting some of the natives to sing and perform on the album with them, the band wrote songs about not only the love of God, but also the love of God in the face of poverty and social injustice.
My favorite track of the album is International Love song. It goes like this:
Can I take your picture, put it in my billfold
You’ll never believe where I will take you
Can I have your headband, put it in my suitcase
You know I’m always gone before I think to thank you
I’m a soul that wanders in the field between
The Hyatt and the Leela
Empty as a tiffen in the afternoon
A perfect love is a world without hunger
A perfect love is a world without hunger
Freckles on your forehead, twinkle in your eye
You look just like my true love
Is she in your village when can I meet her
She’s so indigenously dressed, You’re so indigenously dressed
I’m a thumb that wanders through the pages of
The National Geographic
Staring at my cell phone in an airport lounge
A perfect love…Maybe I’ll stay here…is a world without hunger
Maybe I’ll take you home
A perfect love…Where do we go from here…is a world without hunger
You know a perfect love is a world without hunger
I’ve never seen it
I’ve never heard of it before
But I keep on looking for
A world without hunger
Cricket for baseball, polo for golf…
Curry for ketchup and barbeque sauce…
Lookin’ to find a reason to shine…
Waitin’ in rickshaws standing in line
Or wandering through the field between
The Hyatt and the Leela
Empty as a tiffen…
As I sit and think about the words, I cannot help but to think that I will never know the constraints of hunger and poverty. Never will I truly experience it for myself. Never will I be fearful of going hungry, starving, or drinking contaminated water on a consistent basis.
But for more than two0thirds of the world, this is not the case. Thousands die each day due to preventable diseases and hunger. Should this not push our hearts towards compassion and empathy? Should we not be good stewards of what we have been blessed with and work towards a world that is without hunger? A world without sin?
"A perfect love is a world without hunger." If all the Christians in the world loved so well, cared for their neighbors well and put others above themselves, this could be a reality. We should be seeing things like social injustice through Kingdom Eyes-seeing the love of God for all people, no matter geographical or social positions. Past sins are forgotten by the Love of the Son (
John 4,
John 8) and lives are changed. Should we not do the same?
There is a bigger Kingdom in which we are neither rulers or kings. We are subjects to the Most High God, who rules with justice and grace. We are simply beggars showing others where to find food. All are invited to the
feast, all are welcome to the table. We need to be ready to receive fully what the Lord has blessed us with and be ready to receive and share His provision.
Jesus is all I need.
