when i think about people Yahweh cares about, i know the answer is all of us.  but i bet african children stolen from their families or captured because of being orphaned and then forced to work in unpaid and unsafe conditions so that we can eat some tasty chocolate - i bet these kids are pretty close to Yahweh's heart.  or, that's what the Scriptures seem to say. (ps 9:9, 10:17, 34:18 etc).  so, if Yahweh's heart is close to them, i want my heart to be there too.

but then, my heart is close to little girls whose home lives aren't great but who come to church on a sunday and are welcomed by a community who wants to buy girl scout cookies to let those little girls know they have family in that community.  i think Yahweh's heart is with them.  and so i think mine should be too.

and my heart is close teenage boys from rough neighborhoods selling king-sized snickers bars so that the after-school basketball program that is keeping them off drugs and out of gangs can continue.  i think Yahweh's heart is with them.  and so i think mine should be too.

but it can't be in all those places.  not actively.  it can and does struggle and pray in those places.  but girl scout cookies and king-sized snickers bars come to us at the painful and sometimes deadly cost of little boys and girls in africa.  these situations are paralyzing.

once, outside a safeway in sacramento, a young man asked me to buy a snickers bar to support his basketball team.  i told him no.  i gave him $5 and told him a bit about global slavery.  i told him i love what he's doing but hope maybe in the future it could be done differently.  he seemed thankful to know more about the world and how he's connected to other people about his age in africa and how maybe in the future their mutual flourishing could be possible rather than opposing.

but...do you say that to a little girl who is so proud and happy about what she's doing? how do you say that to a little girl who is too young to really understand and who just needs a place of abandon, love, and acceptance?  can you?

girl scout cookies are the worst.  they are made in ways that harm the environment, with chocolate that harms children, and often produced in china in ways that harm even more people.  and then they come to innocent hearts in the west and go door to door pulling at genuinely well-meaning heart-strings.


damn that to Hell!  with every well-meaning string in my heart, i want the system that produces girl scout cookies to literally be damned to Hell.  

...but that has very little to do with the little girl at church and the room full of people singing songs about a loving and just God with thin mints tucked neatly under their pew and happy thoughts about loving a young girl in need of a loving home-away-from-home tucked neatly and rightly in their minds.

Yahweh's heart is with those people.  Yahweh's heart is with that girl.  Yahweh's heart is with those children in africa harvesting chocolate that will fund the children of the global 1% (or maybe 10%)'s suburban field trips and merit badges.  Yahweh's heart is close to those who suffer because of deforestation.  Yahweh's heart is close to Chinese men, women, and children laboring to make thin mints and samoas.  and i hope Yahweh's heart is close to mine as i wonder what on earth the way of Jesus looks like in the face of girl scout cookies.