Service Learning...

So, in about six weeks, I start teaching my first class - Service Learning at the Denver School of Science and Technology. I will be leading two classes on a journey to explore poverty in our world and more importantly what we can do about it. I hope not only to educate these high school students but to motive them to act. And, in fact, we will be doing various service projects throughout the next few months culminating in a trip to somewhere like New Orleans or Mexico to do work with the poor.

Needless to say, I'm super excited about the possibilities.

I was reading Ecclesiastes this morning and noticed something very real and powerful to where I'm at in my life right now. It refers to the idea that life is not fair. And it isn't. As Bono would say, "Why should an accident of latitude and longitude determine why; where or not you live or you die?" Solomon seems to be asking the same thing. He toils and labors and works, but the reward is not always reachable. It isn't fair.

The poor seem to know the feeling.

Often, I get the idea that people can get out. If they would just "X" then "Y" can happen. But, it's not always true. "X" for many of us is achievable, but for the 2.5 Billion people who live in poverty, maybe it's not. Yet, what can we do to help, to change, to influence, to affect...?

There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. Ecc 8:14

These are the questions with which I will challenge my students and myself.