Jose on appreciating what we have

On Sundays I regularly attend the Hispanic mass at the Jesus Our Risen Savior with my family. This past Sunday mass was different from most of the previous Sundays because we had a special guest priest that came from Colombia. He was different from the other Colombian priests that came to visit our parish because he didn’t belong to a specific church. In the past few years he has worked as a missionary, traveling with another collegue across Africa, in hopes of alleviating extreme poverty. Growing up in poverty as a child, he thought he was familiar with the sadness in a parent’s eye when they knew they didn’t make enough to keep food in their child’s belly, but according to him, he was not even close to relating to what he saw in some villages. He saw parents watch their kids die daily. In some of the places he visited the meals consisted of water and some type of blood with a bread, mainly composed of a corn based dough. Whenever he had a little extra food for the kids in the village he always had the little ones asking for more. He said in Spanish, “Anything that you put in front of them they will eat.” Instead, he said with serious humor, it’s funny how our kids in America whine about what’s put on their plates, and refuse to eat. He then continued to try to get his point across to all of us that were listening, mostly those in the immigrant community, that we forget our ways when we come to the states. He pointed out the way, many immigrants start the habit of wasting material and food here in the U.S. that many of us did not do back in our country, which is true. We have forgotten our roots. You hear it a lot from your parents when you were younger to not waste food, or see commercials of starving kids, but somehow it never seems to click. I thought real hard of what he was saying to us, and how we could fix our bad habits. It’s not about what is on your plate, it’s about giving to others that don’t have as much on their plate. Many of us already have a lot on our plate, and we to tend to develop habits of wanting more. I have been guilty of this bad habit. Instead we need to share our abundance. Hopefully during the upcoming holidays we will not forget others who do not have as much on their plate. Soup kitchens always need a helping hand, or just food. If you have a little extra from your party, swing by, and give a little off your plate.