So it took me until halfway through the eclipse to figure out how to get a halfway decent picture with my camera. But this is what I got. How amazing is this! I just think of how HUGE the earth moon and sun is, let alone the solar system... let alone the universe. And then think of how God could just watch it like a scale model He could set on his countertop. I have to admit... I'm kinda jealous.

I was at camp this weekend... surprise surprise... and the speaker, Robert, was talking Saturday night about greed and the needs of people around the world.

92% of the world doesn't have a car. 8 out of a 100. That's incredible. Not "doesn't have a nice car," or "doesn't have the kind of car they want." They don't have one.

Roughly 2 billion dollars a year is what it would take to supply the world population with its basic needs. It also happens to be the amount of money Americans spend annually on ice cream.

A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.

30,000 children die each day due to poverty, about one every three seconds.

20% of the world owns 80% of its resources, leaving only 20% for the other 5,281,779, 340 people.

I don't mean to be depressing. I used to be terribly annoyed when I would hear people spout numbers like that. We hear them all the time.

Robert brought up the TV show "My Super Sweet 16" and how, on every episode, the kid is given a car. On one episode the guy was given a Mercedes, but it wasn't the model he'd wanted, so he fumed at his parents until they got another one.

It's easy for us to look at that and say, "What a snotty spoiled rich kid. Doesn't appreciate anything. He shouldn't even have that car." But... what would people in third world countries say about us? I think back to last week or the week before when I was beginning to get fed up with the thing I'm driving and started window-shopping for a new car. Or when I was frustrated with the cost of higher education. Or how flippantly I can sometimes spend money on things that I know I really don't want, probably won't like, and most certainly don't need.

That's disgusting. I don't know about everyone else, but that ticks me off. I want to just kick myself... a new car?! I shouldn't even have the one I'm driving now!! Forget the clothes, a roof, food, running water, health, freedom.

Disgusting. It makes me feel so... terrible. Like I need to just give away everything I own and be rid of all this "stuff" that's been so good at making me so complacent. Like I need to walk out the door with nothing but what I'm wearing and just live with people. Like I need to go and be some sort of modern-day Robin Hood. There's an astronomical amount of hunger, and pain, and death... and how easy would it be for us to totally eliminate that?!? Ridiculously easy!! So what's stopping us??

The title of Robert's speech that night was "There's enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed." He used the ever-popular story about the rich young ruler and the verse, "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

I used to think that "rich" meant someone with a lot of stuff that they were unwilling to give up, like the young man in the story. That it was ok to have the 60 pairs of shoes that you never wore and the beautiful house with the marble floors and spend your money on only the biggest, best, and brightest. That certainly wasn't my family, but I knew people like that. And they seemed ok. And sorry if this offends you, but honestly... now I'm not so sure. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's sinful to live comfortably... but there comes a point at which you need to look at what you have and then look at what you need. I don't mean "need" to feel important or "need" to fit in socially, I mean what you "need" to love God and love others and sustain yourself in this life until you're called to the next. And those needs most definitely don't include what the vast majority of us are striving for.