An Evening Out

  So there I was...

  Standing on the 7th tee box, a beautiful spring evening, eyes red from allergies, score inflated due to a lack of talent, but just grateful to be outside and alive, playing a game on a Monday night.

  A strange and very different idea stuck in my head as I was standing there, waiting for the (very slow) group in front of us to finish in the fairway.  I wondered what life was like for the steelworkers in Andrew Carnegie's day, the ones who worked 14 hour days with no union to protect them, the ones whose lives were sacrificed for the insatiable hunger of industry, of profit.

  And then I remembered that those days did not end then.  There are many who still work 14 hour days.  Some do it in other countries, or in this country, out of the eye of those who might be advocates for them.  Some do it in several jobs, because everyone knows that minimum wage and a living wage do not mean the same thing.  (Rachel has always recommended I read Nickel and Dimed, a book that explores life on minimum wage) Some do it out of duty to others, some out of love for family, some because their is no other way.

  There I was, playing golf on a peaceful (well, as peaceful as any golf course built in the shadow of one of the country's major interstates can be) Monday evening, and the realization that such luxury will never be for many hit me like a ton of bricks.

  Do I see the world as Christ sees it, with all its aches and pains?  Or do I look through luxury-lined glasses, unable to see so much of life because it simply is 'other'?

  And, when I do see, what then?