Die To Selfie


Last Sunday, our gathering of Veritas Church volunteered for this organization: (www.bindinglove.org)


Binding Love is a non-profit that takes donated clothes and turns them into scarves and sells them, directing the proceeds to help get women out of sex trafficking in Thailand. Our job on Sunday was to cut the clothes into the size needed for scarves. Kind of full circle for the clothes since many of them are crafted in the developing world by poorly paid labor. Mostly women, mind you. 

I found my 7th grade Home Econ. class to be of little residual value as I attempted to cut the clothing straight. Yet, it was a fun day and despite the seriousness of the situation of the sex trade, I was getting silly. I put on the pink shirt and had other scraps of clothes around my neck and pink and blue wristbands that were previously sleeves. 

Someone commented that I looked like a mash-up of Richard Simmons and Rocky, and then me and another guy alternated between sounding like Rocky but saying something that Simmons might say and then sounding like Simmons but then saying something that Rocky would say. He shrilled "Adrian" in a high-pitched squeal and then I reciprocated with a Simmons-like "Cut Me." Goofy fun.  

The Pastor snapped the above picture and I had the good sense to obscure my face. I rarely ever consent to having my picture taken. Working in a high school, I fear my face being shared doing something that could be misconstrued. I also rarely take my own picture, unlike Ellen D. and Barack O., in what is now the omnipresent Selfie. Narcissus, gazing at the reflection of himself in water, was just ahead of his time and using the tools and technology available.He might just be an average Joe these days with Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and a thousand other ways to slice and dice our 15 minutes of fame into Nanobytes.

We often get paralyzed when we face the world's problems. I think we focus on ourselves because it is just so easy. Last Sunday we did something, not nothing nor everything. Less selfie, more scarves.  


            

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