Too close for comfort

“It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” Mother Teresa of Calcutta

I thought I might as well jump on the band wagon...

Working at World Vision I am well aware of the fact that the sick and needy die needlessly in our world. The basics of life - food, shelter, medicine, education, water, electricity - on paper there is enough for everybody but it just doesn't seem to make it around.

The 'Haves' of course want to have more. And this feeds the cycle of frenzy where the fat cat chases its tail of profit.

Of course we all know that everyday thousands die in the genocide of greed but the thing is that it normally happens with the lights switched off. That is, in the places of our world that we cant really see. I mean it is not like people are dying needlessly in our own backyard. Well that is with the exception of Mrs Muliaga - a sick South Auckland mother who died because she was $168.40 behind in paying the family electricity bill.

Well the verdict is still pending as to why exactly she died. But no matter what - we know she died in the cold, surely saddened by what was happening and undoubtedly afraid.

It all just makes you want to chuck stones. Who gets the first metamorphic missile? The contractor? Mercury Energy?

Mrs Muliaga died because a man was forced to make a decision in a culture that values money over mercy, getting over giving, more over less, profit over purpose, me over we, us over them. This isn't a picture of an ugly man making an ugly decision or a cruel company making money from pillaging the poor. No, this is a snapshot of our age - our values - our priorities - our confusion of what makes our lives good.

I only wish I would live differently. Yada, yada, yada.

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