BLOGGING TOWARD SUNDAY…

I wouldn’t know about this  book if it were not for Reader’s Digest, which, for some unexplained reason, shows up monthly in my mailbox (unexplained because I have never subscribed to it).  The blurb I read this morning came from a book with the tantalizing title:  Why We Suck:  A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy, and Stupid, by Denis Leary.  Here’s the quote, labeled by RD as an “argument starter”:

This country — including you and most of the people related to you by birth or marriage or both — is populated by beings who have been so blessed for so long that they have become almost completely immune to any interests other than their own.

While it is still relatively easy to point to examples which contradict Leary’s statement, there is enough truth there to cause us concern.  Speaking strictly for my own family, we definitely fall into the “so blessed for so long” category.  Indeed, my family, immediate and at a distance, have never known hunger, poverty, or anything approaching real unfulfilled need.  In fact, we have always possessed an abundance of “things.”  Very seldom have we been called upon to fast, to sacrifice, to abstain, to rein in, or otherwise limit our intake for the sake of more outgo.

Such abundance carries with it the danger of feeling entitled, that somehow we deserve the good fortune of having been born into such pleasant circumstances.  It is that feeling, I fear, that causes us not to be concerned with the fact that a huge percentage of the  world’s population goes to bed hungry every night, or fearful that bombs will drop on them as they sleep, or knowing that the only water they have to drink is what is killing their children. 

As I read the papers and watch the news every night, I am becoming more and more convinced that we are likely entering a period when sacrifice will be required, rather than asked, of us.  How will we respond when separated from so many things we have enjoyed and gotten used to, but never really needed? 

Perhaps our current economic crisis will have the positive effect of shocking us out of our absorption with ourselves, and, realizing how fortunate we have been, cause us to finally give some attention to those who have never known anything other than hopelessness and despair.

Filed under: Blogging Toward Sunday