Uncomfortable Stuff

Every five seconds, another child dies from hunger-related causes.

OK, I know what you're thinking. Um, what blog is this? Did I stumble onto some other site by mistake? WHERE'S THE SHALLOW?

Don't worry. I'm still VERY shallow. (PROOF: I'm sitting here writing a post about world hunger while eating a stack of double-stuffed oreos. See? Hypocritical AND gluttonous. I'm actually waiting for lightning to strike me dead any minute now.)

Whenever I read sentences like that top one, I feel a strong urge to look away, probably because as I might have mentioned before (maybe, perhaps) I am (say it with me) shallow.

Sentences like that make me uncomfortable - as they should. I want to click away, turn the page, find something more lighthearted to read to use as brain bleach. I don't want to think about those kinds of things. I don't want to know statistics like that.

It's not that I'm uninformed. I listen to NPR. I read multiple newspapers. I know what's going on in the world. But I don't want to hear what it all boils down to in terms of dying children.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with those kinds of facts. I'm helpless in the face of the enormity of the problem. I know I can't change world economics. I know I can't change the way food markets work. It seems pointless to try to change anything, so I do nothing at all. I sit back and eat my oreos and think about other things.

Sometimes I rationalize it, thinking, oh, I don't need to worry about it. God will take care of it. And then I eventually realize that God's plan for taking care of things might involve a whole lot of people like me, finally getting tired of sitting around doing nothing.

So this month I'm going to do something. I'm not going to solve the crisis. I'm not going to work huge miracles. But I AM going to try to make a difference in the life of one child. One person helping one child.

This month, we're going to eat oatmeal for a couple of meals and use the money we would have spent on food to sponsor a child through a legitimate charity.

Compassion International has set aside June 25 as a day of fasting and prayer to help combat global hunger. You can read about it here. Even if you aren't religious, you can skip a few meals and donate the money to help fight global hunger. You can sponsor a child. You can learn more. You can do something.

While you read this, four children died.

That's a number even us shallow types can understand.