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Sunday, August 28, 2011

What Do I See?

The faces . . .  I can't get them out of my mind's eye . . . the faces of starvation: the infants and children, the elderly and the old-before-their-time.  This time the camera frames Somalia's hunger.  Last time it was . . . Sudan? or some other place?  Water and food in scarce supply.  Yet I find in the statistics that there is enough food in the world today for every human inhabitant to have 4.5 lbs. daily!  So what's the problem?  Access!!

Yet access remains forever the inhibiting factor, and now we add to that the lack of clean water.  Or the lack of water, period.  And why must this be?  You and I know the answer, the one we pretend ignorance to, the one we push into the recesses of our thoughts where it can't interfere with our comfort.  The unequal distribution of wealth, that ogre of our nightmares, makes its way around this planet.  This planet.  We live in the garden of God.  All we need to sustain life is present.  Yet distribution of food, availability of water, a freely contributing marketplace . . . they present their absent faces to us, blotted out by the offensive ogre of Greed.

Compassion has been erased from the face of Greed so that those who have, get, and those who haven't . . . well they die.  Soon all the ones left behind will be those who have all they want, more than they need, and they continue to reach for more, creating more who have nothing.  Rich African soil for farming eventually turns into desert as trees are cut down for heat, or for a place to live.  The desert grows.  And so does hunger grow, moving more rapidly than the dying of part of our Earth.  It would take such small effort to halt this pattern of hunger, of more desert lands, more poverty, more death.  It would be simple.  Yet the likelihood moves farther and farther from our grasp.  We cannot hold onto the hope much longer.

God's garden is dying.  Not only in Africa but across our world.  And we who have so much, can stop this danger.  It is within our power to do so.  How?  Well, we begin by sharing the wealth.  Yes, distribution of wealth so that all have enough and no one has too little.  We distribute the sense of compassion, of holy calling to serve the Creator by serving the creation.  The wealthy areas of the planet have no need of all that we have, without our sharing it with the areas where there is nothing, or where the least of these, the children of the Creator, eke out ways of life.

I don't know if we can do so.  I don't know the outcome.  I don't know if enough have enough to share with those who so far never have enough.  What is it you would do to change the picture?  What is it I can do to erase those faces I see when I close my eyes?  Is it too late to refresh the Garden?  Not yet. Go.


2 comments:

  1. I wrote this because I feel so deeply about the needs of this world. We CAN change the picture!

    ReplyDelete
  2. We absolutely can, especially with women like you reminding us that we can, Jean.

    ReplyDelete