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Today's
quotation:
Once
poverty is gone, we'll need
to build museums to display its
horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty
continued so long in human society-- how a few people could live
in luxury
while billions dwelt in misery,
deprivation and despair.
Muhammad Yunus
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Today's
Meditation:
When I
was younger, I used to hear about how so many people were
fighting poverty, about how we would be seeing less and
less poverty in the world as time goes on.
Unfortunately, though, that seems not to have been
completely true. Poverty persists, and it brings us
all down when other human beings are unable to support
themselves, feed themselves, have decent shelter, be able
to treat themselves to something nice every once in a
while.
The
news seems to be pretty good as far as numbers are
concerned-- extreme poverty has been reduced significantly
over the last several decades, actually cut by more than
half according to some estimates. But extreme
poverty is only one part of the picture-- there are
billions of people living in conditions that are
unhealthy, and they have little to no opportunities for
changing their circumstances.
So do
I think that we all should feel guilty because others have
less than we do? Of course not. That kind of
guilt does nothing to improve situations. We can,
though, be aware of what's going on and do our best to
counter poverty in ways that are available to us.
Giving to charities that run thrift shops is a very good
way to help, for example. If the parent who can't
afford new school clothes for their children can find
decent clothing for very low prices instead of new, store
prices, that can be very helpful. Giving to
charities that pass things on for free can be even better,
especially when it involves food and other necessities.
We'll
always hear the argument that if we give to others, we're
keeping them from learning to help themselves. While
there is some truth in that idea-- in extreme situations--
the truth is that most of us have much more
than we need, and it's in everyone's best interests for us
to share. Poverty is a social problem as well as a
personal issue, and we'll be doing the entire world a huge
favor by doing everything we can, even in our own small
ways, to work against it.
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