Friends, we humans are all part of a big extended family. There are nearly seven billion of us. Each one of us carries a responsibility to all the others. Or should.
The image above shows one of our family members who is doing it tough. Very tough! In the hierarchy of things, this starving human is down the bottom of the pile. There are millions like him. While he starves, people at the top of the pile live in luxury. What they throw out in the garbage each day would easily feed this child.
How is it that we have created a world where so many people struggle to survive while a small group have it all? Surely this is not right? Why don’t those who have so much feel some sense of responsibility for those who are less well off? How can they enjoy their obscene wealth while they know that children all over the world are starving or dying of preventable diseases. The answer is: easily.
We have been taught that the world is a competitive place and you’d better get in and grab what you can while you can. We’ve been taught that greed is good, that more is good, that flaunting wealth is good, that driving prestigious cars is good, that living in mansions in exclusive suburbs is good, that owning huge yachts is good, that sending your children to a private school is good. Of course most people don’t get to have these things but that doesn’t stop them spending their whole lives trying to.
Surely, we must change the way the world is run so that this suffering child and others like him are taken care of. That he suffers is an indictment of our capitalist world, of its selfishness, of its elitism, of its lack of morality, of values.
Friends, this child is your child. He is your son or brother or nephew or grandchild. He is your responsibility.
We must change our world, drive the moneychangers from the Temple, isolate them.
We must learn to care for our whole human family and share.
In doing so, we will become spiritually enriched!
And more noble.
this is a disaster that I just do not have an answer for. I want to help the hungry but what organization that distributes aid is trustworthy?
Recently I’ve becomed involved in donating to those who make microloans, enough to buy llamas in Peru, or enough for a farmer in s.e.Asia to have a flock of chickens but to be confronted with an obviously starving child makes my efforts seem paltry & useless.
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Short of a massive change of heart it ain’t goin to happen..BUT…don’t stop trying!
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What we need to do, Kate and Michael, is to change the me-first indoctrination.
We must: boycott capitalist enterprises, shield ourselves from the endless advertising, treat the money-grubbers with contempt, get involved with aid agencies, sponsor a child, encourage giving rather than taking, teach our children to be carers, etc.
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Post this picture all over Wall Street and Washington DC – without any comment…..this picture SCREAMS!
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David G Reply:
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Margit, how much taxpayer bailout money was given to Banks and Insurance Companies, etc, again? Trillions of dollars, wasn’t it? We were told they were too big to fail.
This boy is not very big so I guess he doesn’t count!
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How is it that we have created a world where so many people struggle to survive while a small group have it all?
I think we can start with that figure you quoted…7B humans on the planet! There’s a fair argument to be made that the sustainable human population is somewhere between 2.5 and 4 billion. We’re on a road to our own extinction.
Though reducing the human population won’t do away with avarice it would give us the opportunity to cultivate and distribute scarce resources more equitably.
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Yuck! I’m not sure what Kvatch is suggesting but I’ll pass on that particular opportunity to cultivate and distribute scarce resources more equitably. There’s plenty of food and water to prevent this kind of suffering. Humanity is not the problem. It’s our inhumanity that allows this to exist.
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While we might argue about the population figure which best suits our damaged planet, Kvatch, I don’t think there’s any argument about VR2′s point about man’s inhumanity to man being the underlying cause of the suffering of the poor boy.
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This is a living planet. All sentient beings feel and perceive. This picture breaks my heart and is seared in my mind. I think of children like this and there truly is no reason for it except greed. Warlords hoard food and supplies that aid organizations try to get in. Corruption at every level of the food chain.
Once I had a child, I learned how universal children are: their needs, the sound of their cry. We can’t say there is nothing we can’t do. It is like a journey and we are trying to reach him and her. I start here by composting; not wasting anything, even rain water. Not killing the critters, but finding a place for them; snails out of the geraniums and into the compost. It is a living world and life wants to live. It is our primary initiative. We are being invited to co-exist. The critters that we encroached on have been adapting and observing us.
Yes, let’s stop overpoulating. Educated people in times of peace have fewer children. When war is blazing everything is out of control. Nature is cruel, but it is true and we all know it that the extra bits of food we all scrape off our plates or sits in the fridge too long if put together would be an abundance for the souls as the one above.
It is a long journey from my refrigerator to this child’s mouth, but I must at least consider moving towards him, not looking away as I am compelled to do.
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David G Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Grace, yours is a generous position. You live the truth you advocate unlike most humans!
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That picture breaks my heart. What makes me angry is when people who are relativly well off complain about how hard they have it.
People who complain that they don’t have the biggest TV or the newest car etc. So many of us in the developed world seem to lack an sense when it comes to what we have and what the most of the rest of the world has.
There seems to be no end to how much we want.
A very good charity that gets excellent ratings is Mercy Corp. I have been donating money to them and I think they do a good job of helping those in the most need.
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Jeannie, I call those, ‘fancy problems.’
Also, the solution is in slowing down. One of the symptoms of a society that does not value its people – once known as its’ greatest asset – is impatience. No room, no time to wait. I saw three people walking yesterday. Crossing the street from the grocery store and an Armada looking vehicle – a Cadillac SUV in a pretty cream color driven by a pretty blonde lady, nearly knocked these people down in her rush to get to a quiet upscale neighborhood. She probably resents the apartment dwellers that live on the periphery of her little slice of heaven. I have listened to people from these neighborhoods make such complaints.
The above situation I described is but one symptom, but if people really changed, even that much, just slowing down and having a heart for people that probably have no choice but to walk – and there is a large subculture of people who are priced out of driving or other reasons for not having a license. It would be an amazing transformation.
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