[!] It's one thing to give a lecture ...

... about the Gospel and talk all this talk about the resurrection and orthodoxy and all that very important, God-purposed stuff. It is another thing entirely to just talk about it.

My wife and I have this joke about how we measure the current state of things in our marriage based on the idiom "high on the hog": we rate the current state of things based on the "mud line". When things are going good, we're above the mud line; when things are getting shook up, we're around the mudline. When we get fired from a job for no reason and it becomes apparent that we may have to file bankruptcy in order to keep our kids from living in a box in Manitowoc, WI (which, BTW, we never had to do, thanks be to God), that's way below the mud line.

Right now Hurricane Katrina has left a lot of people not just below the mudline: it has left them under the hog. All things being equal, it's like 1% of the population of the US that has been effected in the short run here, but that means it leaves the other 99% of us to do something about it.

Pull yourself away from Camp Cindy for 5 minutes; forget about whether Judge Roberts is a crypto-fascist or has closeted opinions about abortion we can't figure out yet; put down the diet Coke or the name-brand Coffee. If you're a Christian, right now pull your head out of your pious little world of concerns. Right now you have to do something about what just happened to these people.

One of your choices is to hit "NEXT BLOG" (HA! There IS NO NEXT BLOG BUTTON! Take That!). You're a moral free agent, and you can choose to do nothing about this disaster because you don't know anybody who got hurt, so it's not your problem.

Another choice is to find out what's going on in your community to help these people and join in. Maybe take a week off from work and got pick up wreckage in a neighborhood you never heard of. Maybe you have a generator you want to bring down and you only live 5 hours away. If that's you, go do it now. Don't wait. Tell your boss you're taking time off and GO DO IT NOW.

Another choice -- which is COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY IN THE SCOPE OF POSSIBILITY FOR EACH AND EVERY PERSON READING THIS BLOG ENTRY is to donate money to people on the ground already:

• The Red Cross's website is getting pounded, but they're there already. They could use $10 from you today.

• Whatever you think of the Southern Baptists, they stood up and went to fill the need. You can donate to the relief efforts they are providing through the North American Missions Board.

• I wasn't able to find any atheist organizations who are on the ground helping. I wonder why?

• The Salvation Army is feeding people and caring for the sick.

• The Methodists have people in place serving the victims of the storm.

• Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse is organizing relief efforts (thx Hugh Hewitt).

• If you check comments, my sidekick JIBBS was listening to Michael Medved, who recommended Feed the Children as a relief organization on the ground. He says that $35 can supply 250 lbs of relief supplies.

• I didn't find any Muslim relief agencies sending in help, but I did find that Catholic Charities is also mobilizing people.

• UPDATE: Michelle Malkin also gives a roundup of people going in. DO SOMETHING.

• UPDATED: Yahoo! News has a list that might be helpful to you.

• Glenn Reynolds also has a running list of help organizations. Looks a lot like the one we've got here, but maybe he's quicker on the draw than I am.

Listen: if you're just going to sit there, don't pretend that you are capable of or qualified for internet apologetics. This is where we trade our ashes in for beauty. If you just have a loud mouth and a good argument, you're no better than a clanging cymbal if you can't find a way to help these people in a time of desperate need. Don't just nod your head and then slip over to Defamer or Hugh Hewitt or back to work or whatever: you have come upon people dressed in rags and half-starved and if you say, "Good morning, friends! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup--where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

Do something about it RIGHT NOW. You. Personally. Even the guy from Billings, Montana and the guy from Helsinki, Finland, and the guy from India who took a look at the site in Mahareshtra. And even the guy in Sheffield, UK.

I didn't just dump these links up here to feel good about myself. And I'm not asking you to do something I wasn't willing to do. The way I see it, if the daily visitors to my blog each give what I gave today to one of these relief agencies, we can feed between 500 and 1000 people. We might provide enough water for 3000 people. We might buy 100 generators.

It's up to you. You want to serve? Serve now. I made it easy for you.

FOR YOU SPIDERS AND SEARCH ENGINES -- FILE UNDER: hurricane Katrina disaster relief list