Afflict the Comfortable

The title of this post comes from a quote attributed to an American journalist, Finley Peter Dunne, from the late 1800's. The full quote is "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable". Another take on this that I saw just this morning is the statement, "you may not like your life, but someone is dying to have it". My point in all this and in this post is that we have a problem in the "developed" world with searching for comfort instead of equity. One of my least favorite "reality" shows on T.V. nowdays is "Auction Hunters" a show about two guys who go to auctions at public storage facilities. People have abandoned their stuff and these guys buy the storage unit contents for a relatively small amount of money and try to turn a profit. Now, I really don't have a problem with two guys finding a niche and exploiting it, but it points to a problem of being too comfortable and excessive. The self storage industry in America is worth tens of billions of dollars every year. Houses are 50% larger than they were on average in 1975, yet we've hoarded enough to need to spend tens of billions of dollars yearly to store the stuff we no longer have room for in our houses. Instead of Allen and Ton making money off other people's excess, what if the show was about how they distributed the abandoned goods to folks who could really use it? What if instead of people investing in a storage room, the excess stuff was given to a social service agency or other non-profit and used to improve the lot of a neighbor? All major religions teach their followers about caring for the poor, the widow and the orphan - the least and the lost. We've become a people that use divisive terminology to explain the world - "developed' vs. "undeveloped". We have the G8 and everyone else. Case-in-point, the Gross National Income per Capita in 2010 for the U.S. was $47,140 (rank 18th); 48 of the 215 countries listed had a GNI of $1200 or less. Is there really any rational or humanistic reason that the average GNI of the U.S. is 40 times more than Nigeria, Cameroon or Vietnam? We have lost our compassion, our ethical mandate, and our Kindergarten ethic of sharing equally. It is way past time to get a bit less comfortable. There is no reaason (beyond self indulgence) to continue to acquire while those near us starve. There is no reason for everyone not to have access to affordable healthcare of a decent quality. There is no reason that all people should not have access to nutritious and affordable food. There is no ethical or moral reason for us all to be so comfortable - or so smug. Remember the adage "there but for the grace of G-d go I". Has our comfort either as a nation or as individuals really come only from our hard work and intelligence? Who was it that gifted us with our talents and placed us in the U.S. instead of Cameroon? This week, let's work to recover our compassionate mandate to actually care for one another and to work for equity in all aspects of life. Peace for the journey, Dan