and she stays there for awhile, and then someone yells at her, and then she stays a little longer, and then she goes home. Her story is almost the opposite of Bill Gates's advice .. the expert and the fool .. both ways to live out your God-given caring. And there are many more.

We care together. That is one of the incredible joys and wonders of being part of this body we belong to, the church - A body with plenty of warts and some broken bones, but a body, neverless, that is truly capable of acting in the world. In a speech at the U.N., the new prime minister of England, Gordon Brown talked about global poverty and the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals. (which, as you know, are Goals the Episcopal Church has bought in to and urges us all to participate in). Brown said that after seven years "it is already clear that our pace is too slow; our direction too uncertain; our vision at risk. ... I want to summon into existence the greatest coalition of conscience in pursuit of the greatest of causes. . . ". He says h is talking to business and government. And then he says to "faith groups and NGOs-your moral outrage at avoidable poverty has led you to work for the greatest of causes, the highest of ideals, and become the leaders of the campaign to make poverty history. Imagine what more you can accomplish if the energy to oppose and expose, harnessed to the energy to propose and inspire, is given more support by the rest of us-businesses, citizens, and governments."

There is lots to say about living out your caring. At the top of the list is: do it. At the end: don't ever stop. Don't get discouraged, hang in there, keep on keeping on. You are part of something much larger than you are. It is God's world and God's work, and we are not alone.