Hi everyone, Mike Kavanaugh here. I'm one of the staff members of the Kaleidoscope Coffeehouse. I am also guitarist in the contemporary church service band here at First United Methodist Church as well as a performing singer/songwriter/guitarist locally. My MySpace page is at www.myspace.com/mikekavanaughdotcom and my website is at www.mikekavanaugh.com.

For my daytime job I work as thrift store and warehouse manager for St. Vincent De Paul Thrift Stores in Jackson, Michigan. I have been working for SVDP for almost 4 years now and it is here that I have become what I jokingly like to call as "permanently afflicted". I have been permanently afflicted with caring for the poor, needy and less fortunate than me.

This has not been my own doing. I will be 55 years old this December. For almost 25 years I have been fairly diligent at seeking the spiritual side of life with daily prayer, Bible reading, meditation, Bible studies, fellowshipping with God (to the best of my abilities), etc. For most of that 25 years I had a relatively high income job as a specialist in industrial automation, mostly centered in the automotive industry.

I guess I am personally shocked and disappointed that, in all that time, never did I develop a real heart of compassion for those in need around me. It never got infused into my being through prayer or Bible study. It was never dropped into me from above as a divine mission. For most of those 25 years, even though I did my best to "seek first the Kingdom of God", I have always had goals of more stuff, better lifestyle, better cars, nicer home and so forth. It wasn't until I was permanently laid off and struggled to keep myself and my family afloat that I learned about the struggle that many face every single day. They are all around us and I don't think it's going to get better. I think things are going to get worse and we need to be sensitive and looking for opportunities to help people in need around us. It is what Jesus Himself would be doing because the Bible speaks of Jesus going about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil.

So, no matter what church or spiritually oriented organization I belong to, I suspect I will be injecting this cry for help for those in need around us. I firmly believe that the resources and the people and the passion are available to help our neighbors through tough times. We just need to recognize the needs and set our courses to be there to help. I don't think it is going to be dropped into us from above. I think we just need to wake up and look around and start living out our faith as Jesus would have us do. I am sure I am not the only person that feels that way here at the coffeehouse and we are all hoping that we can put together resources and teams to meet these needs locally. Saturday night music at the coffeehouse is just the icing on the cake. And, at least to me, the real cake is hearing at the end of my life, "well done, good and faithful servant" as well as "when you helped the least of these around you, you helped Me".

Permanently afflicted,

Mike Kavanaugh