Banker to the Poor

Check out this article on the latest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He links the world peace with the reduction of poverty. interesting stuff. and he looks super stoked.

i'm trying to keep up on the news and read more, seeing as how i have the time to do so. i'm wondering if all the rest and free time i have right now is the time to make up for the last year of school, where i lived on red alert for 8 months. that just ocurred to me today. basically i didn't really practice the sabbath during that time. i feel like i just managed to finish before the wheels came off my wagon completely.

it also just occurred to me that i have yet to hold a typical 9-5 office job. i worked at the washington post, and that was a 6pm-2 am gig (awful, but it did have some perks). then i was a teacher which was a part-time schedule (you try filling a two hour block of time with 20 sixth graders twice a week"hey it's time for another video!"). worked at summer camp which is all sorts of fun and chaos. after that came being in youth ministry and that has a unique schedule all it's own (though i did have my own cubicle aread that i actually enjoyed). and then came three blurry mind/heart/life-altering years of grad school. this could have happened subliminally, after the editor at my magazine internship in college warned me against getting jobs that required me to wear panty hose (best thing that i learned there. best thing that i taught there? teaching another editor the difference between tupac shakur and notorious b.i.g. and showing her how to flash the west side sign).

and now... well, now i have this desire to work on the behalf of those on the margins, be a good steward of creation, and be more thoughtful about my faith. and i haven't the foggiest idea of how that will come about. and i can see all these different avenues to take, hear all these different cries for help in different forms, and i sit here under my parents' grape vine arbor like jonah under his shrub, stewing (i know that his stewing is totally different from my stewing, i just like that i'm sitting under this grapevine, plus i'm reading wendell berry when i'm not blogging so it's not all that bad).