Axe to grind?

In the sidebar, you'll see I have a link to "The Axle". I'm part of the coffee-holics support group that started it and we're trying to create a space for Christians to encounter fresh ways of engaging their faith in South Africa and the world. So if you think there is something that could help us get a debate going let us know.

The latest post I've copied here:

Mother Theresa always said, “Calcuttas are everywhere – if only we have the eyes to see. Find your Calcutta.” I was ready to come home. I knew that my Calcutta was the United States. For I knew we could not end poverty until we took a careful look at wealth. ... I learned from the lepers that leprosy is a disease of numbness. The contagion numbs the skin, and the nerves can no longer feel as the body wastes away. In fact, the way it was detected was by rubbing a feather across the skin and if the person could not feel it, they were diagnosed with the illness. To treat it, we would dig out or dissect the scarred tissue until the person could feel again. As I left Calcutta, it occurred to me that I was returning to a land of lepers, a land of people who had forgotten how to feel, to laugh, to cry, a land haunted by numbness. Could we learn to feel again?

Shane Claiborn, The Irresistable Revolution. (after a stint of serving in a leper colony in Calcutta.)

In South Africa, we have Calcutta and the US living next door to each other. We are one of the few countries where such poverty and wealth are so proximate. We do not have the luxury of geographic distance. So our collective numbness seems even more stark.

Check out "The Axle"