Inner conflict

When asked to write about previous conflicts, the ones that stand out for me are the ones I have with myself.  Psychological struggles resulting from two simultaneous but often incompatible ideas that regularly leave me emotionally drained.  Friends and family say I over think things.

It was only last week that my recent internal conflict began.  The kids had brought home their leaflets for this years Operation Christmas Child mission.  It is run by Samaritans Purse and has the following mission statement

‘The mission of Operation Christmas Child is to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to needy children around the world, and together with the local church worldwide, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ”

In all honesty the God’s love, local church worldwide and Good News of Jesus Christ bits are absolutely meaningless to me but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bloody good cause.  The kids wrapped their empty shoeboxes in Christmas paper and made their lists of things to send; bouncy balls, pens, crayons, paper, yo-yos, sweets, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, flannels, hairbrushes and cuddly toys. 

I decided that whilst I was out buying the things for their shoeboxes I would buy the ingredients for this years Christmas cake.  Mark suggested making some mini ones.  Not a bad idea, could be given as presents for school teachers and I’m quite good at forgetting people so could come in handy for those unexpected visitors.  I searched every shop in Abergavenny but couldn’t find a suitable tin so decided that small baked bean tins would do the job.  £2.76 later and I was the owner of twelve tins of the cheapest, crappiest beans I could find.  As I started emptying the beans into our food waste bin I was suddenly swamped with guilt.  Why should I be able to throw away twelve tins of beans when there are people starving in the world?

I tried to rationalise with myself.  I told myself that it’s fine because we are sending our shoeboxes to children in under developed countries.  However hard I tried, there were no excuses to cover my arse this time, what I was doing was entirely immoral.

I concluded that as I had already thrown the beans away, committed the crime so to speak, I may as well continue.  As I was weighing out the fruit I was still searching for excuses to justify my disgraceful behaviour.

Half an hour later I put the cakes in the oven and headed back to Abergavenny where I bought 12 tins of Heinz baked beans and took them immediately to the food bank.  They would be given to local people in crisis.  I stopped at the bank to make a donation to UNICEF’s Children’s Emergency Fund and returned to my car a little less remorseful.

Later that evening I was telling Mark of my emotional battle.  We discussed how we are fortunate to live the lives we do.  We live comfortably in a secure home, we drive new cars, we take regular holidays and have food and drink on tap.  Mark admits that we are fortunate but he says he has earned our way of life, which of course he has, he worked hard to get where he is today but I still maintain that favourable circumstances have paved our way.

As Mark opened a good bottle of red I tried hard to forget about my own unrest.  I sorted the shoeboxes out and put them ready for the kids to take in the morning. 

As I stood in the bathroom trying to decide whether to use the L’Occitane or the Molton Brown it hit me that somewhere in the world a poverty stricken child is eagerly awaiting the arrival of a shoebox that contains a bar of Imperial Leather….maybe I will always be uncomfortable with how well off we really are.