My wife took me to a little place in Rockford MI last night. It was for her birthday, our little date night a day early since we are booked with non-profit business on her actual birthday. She took me to a little place she had discovered earlier in the week

 War Chest Boutique is a store front operated in connection with Women At Risk, International  

 What WAR does is to help at-risk women in countries around the world. Giving them a chance to earn an income, and to help them with various humanitarian needs. Many of these women have been victims of violence and degradation in war torn countries with dubious human rights records, rampant disease, and starvation.

WAR facilitates volunteer opportunities, provides humanitarian relief and so much more than i could explain in this blog... you really must see their site @ http://www.warinternational.org for the full story

 As i was looking at all of the wonderful items for sale in the shop...newspaper bead necklaces form women in Africa, jewelry for Thailand, items from ladies in India,  all these interesting and beautiful little pieces of work i would normally take for granted... i started to appreciate how easy my life, and more importantly the life of the women important to me, really is in comparison....

 My mother never had to worry that i was going to die from mal-nutrition...

 My sister can walk down the streets of her town in safety without fear of being kidnapped...

 My wife doesn't have to become a widow because of some horrific war in our own country...

 I started thinking about all of the disgusting injustices people inflict upon each other...and especially of the injustices my fellow men inflict upon the women around us...and it reminded me of something i read about Jack Kerouac's aunt telling him that "the world will never know peace until all of the men of the world throw themselves at the feet of their women and beg for forgiveness"

 These thoughts have been bothering me since last night, the poor women suffering in silence, slavery, poverty and filth. Women like my wife, sister,  and my mother. Sometimes it seems like the world will absolutely overwhelm you at every opportunity, wearing you down with its relentless cruelty. Its hard to catch your breath in the face of it all.

 My wife put us down as volunteers for WAR, and hoepfully i will have an opportunity to help them out real soon. I probably can't make up for the negative things i have done in my life, make up for the pain i have caused the women important to me... but maybe i can take just a little bit of the sting out of it all for somebody else. 

 I always tell my son that your dollar is the only vote you have that is worth a damn in this life. You condone the actions of others by allowing your money to go them, to the business practices and culture they promote. You buying into that product goes a lot deeper than the simple transaction of it all... what you DON'T BUY is as important as what you DO BUY...and while buying a necklace from a charity is a pretty small way of voting for the right thing... it felt pretty good to me. And more importantly... it made me think on a deeper level about something larger than my own self for a change