Thought Quotient

God must have known that I needed some extra inspiration today. I stumbled across this quote today and had to post it.

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
-Pope John Paul II

Mother Theresa:

I have walked at night and gone into your homes and found people dying unloved. Here (in the West) you have a different kind of poverty — a poverty of the spirit, of loneliness, of being unwanted. And that is the worst disease in the world today, not tuberculosis or leprosy.

Half of kids suffer war, poverty, AIDS

In his foreword to the report, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said poverty denied children dignity and endangered their lives, conflict robbed them of a secure family life and HIV/AIDS killed parents, teachers, doctors and children themselves.

Whew. I’m sure glad I had Kofi Annan’s expert opinion on that one!

Freighter fuel spill threatens island habitat

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A major spill of dense, viscous fuel from a freighter that ran aground was menacing sensitive wildlife habitat in the Aleutian Islands, but finding the six crew members lost at sea remained a priority — despite their diminishing odds for survival. (emphasis mine).

As if this were a bad thing…

Thousands of gallons of heavy bunker fuel and diesel spilled from a soybean freighter that was ripped clean in half off the shore of Unalaska Island. Near a wildlife refuge, the area is home to sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, tanner crabs, halibut and kelp beds.

Let me tell you right now, if it’s between human life and some crabs, otters and seals… I don’t care how cute they may be, we’re more important than they are!

And by the way, why are we worrying about this… why can’t we just let evolution take it’s course. I mean, after all, if evolution is a scientific fact… can’t we just assume that they will evolve some special mechanism to deal with it? Problem solved.

(more…)

I just got an email this morning at work about a daughter (Amanda - she’s 18 yrs old) of a lady that I work with:

Carolyn’s daughter is in ICU. She has been diagnosed with Wilson’s disease. It is a rare liver disease. She is in desperate need of a liver transplant. Her kidney’s are shutting down and she has been put on dialysis. It is not looking good.

Keep this situation in your prayers.

12/15/04
Update:
Carolyn’s daughter went into surgery around 4:00 this morning for her liver transplant.

12/16/04
Update:
Amanda seems to be doing fine after the surgery, and her liver seems to be working, but she still has a long road ahead of her. They are hoping that her kidneys begin to function within 24 to 48 hours after the surgery (12:00pm yesterday). Carolyn would like to ask all of you to pray specifically for Amanda’s kidneys, lungs, and her blood, as these areas have not returned to normal since the surgery, which was to be expected.

12/17/04
Update:
…she is doing a little better. Her kidneys are showing signs of starting back up. She is having a little issue with her blood not wanting to clot. Her color has improved.

12/20/04
Update:
They removed Amanda’s breathing tube. She is awake and alert now. Her kidneys are not funtioning properly yet, however this may take quite a bit of time. The blood clotting issue is better now.