We finally took the plunge and splurged for our first ever cruise, it being our 20th anniversary and all. It was the longest time Charlene and I have been together alone since the birth of our firstborn over 17 years ago. We enjoyed immensely our seven days away from the real world, from work, from making beds, cleaning house, ferrying kids, surfing the Internet--just to spend time with each other doing whatever we wanted on the ship, in Jamaica, in the Cayman Islands, and in Cozumel (the site of the photo to the left).
That said, I found myself pausing to reflect (I can't help myself) on how fortunate we and everyone else in that boat are compared to the poor around the world who could never dream of having all the food you could possibly eat 24/7 and throwing half of it away. I wondered what a starving Nigerien (note: a Nigerien is from Niger, while a Nigerian is from Nigeria) would think of such luxury and such waste, seeing all the abandoned plates of food scattered throughout the cavernous dining rooms. I'm not sure how many others on the ship let themselves be troubled by such thoughts; perhaps I'm uniquely cursed to be weighed down by them, having spent nearly a third of my in Africa and having developed a somewhat radical view of wealth as a Christian after digesting Jesus' teachings in the Gospel of Luke. John the Baptist angrily denounced a crowd, not for the things you hear harped on in most churches today (like sex, for example), but for owning too much and not sharing what they owned: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same” (Luke 3:11)! If that's the case, then if I own two or more pairs of shoes (as I do) while there are others out there who have none, then I (according to John the Baptist) am subject to being "cut down and thrown into the fire" (Luke 3:9). Or as Jesus warned, "any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33), or, "But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry" (Luke 6:24).
Though I'm no longer a believer and do not regard the Bible as authoritative for our lives (many Christians apparently don't either, judging from their wholesale rejection or explaining away of Jesus' teachings on wealth), and I don't think the radical redistribution of wealth called for in 2 Corinthians 8:3-15 is practical, I still carry a bit of an egalitarian streak from my believing days (or is it just a soft spot in my nature?). After all, if I'm better off financially than a desert-dwelling Nigerien, do I deserve all the credit for what I possess? Did I choose the specific family and culture into which I was born, with all its material and intellectual advantages; did I choose the particular combination of DNA and training I was bequeathed by my parents, allowing for sufficient intelligence to succeed in school and enough determination to find and keep gainful employment in a nation that offers the kind of employment I enjoy? Was I more deserving than an uneducated African child of an excellent gradeschool education, which then allowed me to go on to college and study computer science and later pursue a career in software development? No, no, no, and no! Does a Somali infant deserve to die at her mother's dry breast? Does an inner-city Los Angeles gang member deserve to have grown up without a role model or an education, surrounded by crime, with hardly a choice but to be pressed into a gang? No and no. It's the recognition that "there but for dumb luck go I" that preserves my egalitarian streak, my soft spot for those less fortunate than I am, and a twinge of guilt when I spend more on a one-week cruise than what many in the world spend in a year or three. Especially after listening to humanist ethicist Peter Singer pontificate on just how bad world poverty is and just how many children die per day (26,000) while so many of us live in relative luxury.
I know, I know, there are so many difficult questions that could be raised about our moral responsibility in alleviating human poverty--most importantly, how much is enough before we can say we've done our part? Can I legitimately enjoy a Starbucks latte now and then, even if it costs enough to feed a child for a couple of weeks? Is this something we as individuals should be responsible for (something we as a nation haven't frankly done well at, no matter how generous we think we are), or should we all be taxed so the UN can take care of the starving children in Africa as this comment in response to Singer's interview advocates? What about all those corrupt governments that intercept the aid money and buy arms instead? Aren't we just throwing money down the toilet?
Despite all these questions, I have to believe we as individuals and as relatively wealthy nations and as coalitions of nations could do more to make the world a better place. It's to the advantage of us all for the inequalities to be reduced; why, after all, do you think we in the United States and in many other developed countries have such a problem with illegal immigration? I'm not in the least advocating communism or any sort of forced income caps--these approaches have been tried and have failed. But accepting the status quo, just because the alternatives are full of problems and difficulties, doesn't mean that turning a blind eye to the 26,000 children who starve each day is any less problematic or difficult.
As an alternative to waiting for a perfect solution, I would like to recommend to my readers who can afford it to consider giving a little or a lot to the following nonreligious charitable organizations: PATH, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, and Foundation Beyond Belief. And if you're religious, consider World Vision or Hagar International. In the long run, though, I'm with the commentator who responded to Singer's interview: it's going to take banding together in coalitions of nations, taxing us modestly (it really wouldn't be that big of sacrifice if everyone participated), and putting together a concerted plan to end starvation around the world. We just aren't doing our job as individuals, nor do I expect we ever will, given our mistaken propensity to think we somehow deserve all that we earn thanks to our own efforts and free will (efforts and free will that we think anyone else in the world could exercise to gain what we have, if only they would just do it!).
Though I'm no longer a believer and do not regard the Bible as authoritative for our lives (many Christians apparently don't either, judging from their wholesale rejection or explaining away of Jesus' teachings on wealth), and I don't think the radical redistribution of wealth called for in 2 Corinthians 8:3-15 is practical, I still carry a bit of an egalitarian streak from my believing days (or is it just a soft spot in my nature?). After all, if I'm better off financially than a desert-dwelling Nigerien, do I deserve all the credit for what I possess? Did I choose the specific family and culture into which I was born, with all its material and intellectual advantages; did I choose the particular combination of DNA and training I was bequeathed by my parents, allowing for sufficient intelligence to succeed in school and enough determination to find and keep gainful employment in a nation that offers the kind of employment I enjoy? Was I more deserving than an uneducated African child of an excellent gradeschool education, which then allowed me to go on to college and study computer science and later pursue a career in software development? No, no, no, and no! Does a Somali infant deserve to die at her mother's dry breast? Does an inner-city Los Angeles gang member deserve to have grown up without a role model or an education, surrounded by crime, with hardly a choice but to be pressed into a gang? No and no. It's the recognition that "there but for dumb luck go I" that preserves my egalitarian streak, my soft spot for those less fortunate than I am, and a twinge of guilt when I spend more on a one-week cruise than what many in the world spend in a year or three. Especially after listening to humanist ethicist Peter Singer pontificate on just how bad world poverty is and just how many children die per day (26,000) while so many of us live in relative luxury.
I know, I know, there are so many difficult questions that could be raised about our moral responsibility in alleviating human poverty--most importantly, how much is enough before we can say we've done our part? Can I legitimately enjoy a Starbucks latte now and then, even if it costs enough to feed a child for a couple of weeks? Is this something we as individuals should be responsible for (something we as a nation haven't frankly done well at, no matter how generous we think we are), or should we all be taxed so the UN can take care of the starving children in Africa as this comment in response to Singer's interview advocates? What about all those corrupt governments that intercept the aid money and buy arms instead? Aren't we just throwing money down the toilet?
Despite all these questions, I have to believe we as individuals and as relatively wealthy nations and as coalitions of nations could do more to make the world a better place. It's to the advantage of us all for the inequalities to be reduced; why, after all, do you think we in the United States and in many other developed countries have such a problem with illegal immigration? I'm not in the least advocating communism or any sort of forced income caps--these approaches have been tried and have failed. But accepting the status quo, just because the alternatives are full of problems and difficulties, doesn't mean that turning a blind eye to the 26,000 children who starve each day is any less problematic or difficult.
As an alternative to waiting for a perfect solution, I would like to recommend to my readers who can afford it to consider giving a little or a lot to the following nonreligious charitable organizations: PATH, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, and Foundation Beyond Belief. And if you're religious, consider World Vision or Hagar International. In the long run, though, I'm with the commentator who responded to Singer's interview: it's going to take banding together in coalitions of nations, taxing us modestly (it really wouldn't be that big of sacrifice if everyone participated), and putting together a concerted plan to end starvation around the world. We just aren't doing our job as individuals, nor do I expect we ever will, given our mistaken propensity to think we somehow deserve all that we earn thanks to our own efforts and free will (efforts and free will that we think anyone else in the world could exercise to gain what we have, if only they would just do it!).
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