Christian Leftist

There’s one thing that warms my heart more than sitting indoors during a nasty snowstorm, and that’s people reacting from their gut altruistically.

Mind you, watching reality TV is addictive. Having said that, I watched the entre season of Survivor to blog about it. Then I skipped the blogging part. Except for tonight.

Denise (I forget her last name) lost her job after being voted out in 4th place because “she was too much of a distraction” to her school cafeteria where she works. I don’t disagree with the other Survivors’ decisions to vote her off–she would have won the game if they hadn’nt–but it was still so hard to hear that after all of that suffering and global TV humiliation, she had to lose the minimum-wage job she had.

Apparently, Mark Burnett felt the same way, and near the end of the live reunion show tonight, he made the decision to give Denise 50k to pull her life back together.

It’s the only time I’ve felt like crying because of a reality show. Twice in twenty minutes.

I’m glad James the gravedigger and Denise the lunch lady both received award money. Money may not ‘buy you love,’ but in a country where the cost of living rises by the day, it sure as hell buys you more time. To millions of people, one more day of good health, of a nice dinner out with your love or a trip to the park with the kids, a moment without worries for the bills and the taxes and retirement, an extra month or year to grab an education or find a better job, is real and invaluable, even if the means of achieving it are monetary.

That’s worth living for.