Simple post today, finishing out my excursion down south: Notes from an orphanage.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of people in this world. If you live in the United States and all that privilege that comes with it, you are the minority… not the other way around.
If you live on more than a dozen dollars a day, you’re a minority.
If you’re white, you’re a minority.
If you’re Christian, you’re a minority.
If you have the ability to use indoor plumbing, you’re a minority.
If you possess a passport and have left the country in your entire life, you are a minority.
If you own your home or make the rent, and if it burned down tomorrow some sort of insurance would cover the loss, you are a minority.
If you are reading this on a computer, phone or tablet connected to the internet, you are a minority.
If you have the ability to vote in an election, you are a minority.
If you had two or more meals today, you are a minority.
If you own a car and have a valid driver’s license, you are a minority.
In the grand scheme of the world, you and I – who likely fit a large percentage of all of these things listed above… you and I are the smallest fraction of the world’s population. We are the minority.
Why is this plane leaving 30min late? I want free healthcare but I don’t want to pay my taxes. That police officer wrote me a ticket for doing 89mph in a 55mph zone, how dare he! This phone is a piece of crap; it takes forever to load Angry Birds after I’ve just been writing 17 emails, updating Facebook and FourSquare, getting directions to the restaurant, making reservations on an international flight and photographing my cat because he did this really cute stretch! My refrigerator just died so I’m going to have to eat all the ice cream before it melts. I can’t find the right remote control. My sandwich was too big and it fell apart when I picked it up to eat it. I just got a paper cut from this new $50bill because it was so crisp.
I’m sorry, I don’t want to be preachy or sound sarcastic. Just realize that in the first photo up top, all of the worldly possessions of six young human beings are within that frame. In the bottom photo, something that those six kids may never even know exists. Then again, they’ll probably see it from the hills in Tijuana across the border in San Diego.
Perhaps we should be asking, “What good can I do with all this now that I have this opportunity?” But maybe that’s just me.
Ah, but by the grace of God, go I.
Stay tuned…
-Noah D.
