Scientific Divinity

I am writing this on christmas day simply because I would like to shine some light on the priorities of the world. On this day, we all spend time indulging in fancy foods, unwrapping presents we don’t need, most likely wasting leftovers, and still hoping to get more presents from the next person. We are all guilty of this, as this is what mainstream society has conditioned us to do at christmas time. It has turned into a marketing campaign, that is very successful. But that is not the point of this post. I wanted to tell you a story that even before I had my spiritual experience, I noticed about society.

A couple of years ago, one week after the devastating Haiti quake occurred bringing severe damage and thousands of deaths, I was on a cruise ship. There I was, in the carribean, enjoying all you can eat buffets, that are open 24/7. All the pizza, ice cream, hot dogs and popcorn you can eat between the breakfast lunch and dinner buffets. On top of all that, if you didn’t want buffets, you can go to restaurants and be waited on luxury style. Drinks are readily available whenever you need them, and when you feel like it, you can go relax in a hot tub, swim, or watch a movie under the stars. Its like living in a dream of paradise.

Then after enjoying all of the above activities, I went into my room to retire for the night and turned on the tv. And there on CNN, they were talking about Haiti, and the food problem they had going on there. People fighting for what little food remains, and little to no food on the way. People starving, and dying from their wounds for not getting enough energy to battle it. Shelter hard enough to find, to add to their problems. With more earthquakes happening hourly, from aftershocks, there was no rest for the weary.

Then I thought to myself, here I am, with a boat full of food. And we were less than a hundred miles from Haiti. I quickly did the math in my head, and I can’t remember the exact number now, but I had a pretty good estimate down, some near half a million meals were aboard the ship. When you factor the 3000 people on board, for 9 days, feeding people 24/7, that’s a lot of food. So unable to rest, I went for a walk on the top deck. I look out into the horizon, and I see beautifully lit up cruise ships, no to far away, and a few more off in the distance… I counted 5 other ships within sight on either side of the ship. So I thought to myself, if there was half a million meals per cruise ship, within sight…. then there was roughly 3 million meals within 100 miles of Haiti.

Doesn’t there seem like there’s something wrong with this picture? At first I thought, well we paid to be on this ship so we earned it…. But then I thought…. do we deserve it…. I go and look at the people on the ship, and I kid you not, I would say about 65% of the people were overweight. Some of these people would survive two months without food, so I can’t say that they deserved to be on an all you can eat ship when people are starving to death 100 miles away. I am wondering, how many people on that cruise ship would have protested taking a trip to Haiti, to help out their fellow members of humanity. Would you protest that? Would no one have sympathy or compassion? Or if the captain annonced it and said, we’re going to have to go to Haiti to help them out….. would people have accepted it? How can we expect to survive as a race when we so blindly go about our lives without thought to helping someone in desperate need?

The priorities of the world are totally whacked. Because one nation has more money, does that make them better than the nation that doesn’t have as much? If so, why? Isn’t money just little bits of paper, that in reality, are only valuable because we put a value on it? I wanted to do something when I was on that ship, but I knew there was nothing I could do. Raising money to send to a charity is pointless, because you never really know who gets that money. It’s best to go there yourself and help out, especially when you’re so close with so many resources. If you witness a deadly car accident, do you keep walking? Or do you go and see if you can save a life? I know you would choose the latter. Because that is the natural choice. Well we can still go and help even if it doesn’t occur in our line of sight. So many world problems could be solved, if we learned how to work together, and unite.

I’m not trying to put a dampner on Christmas, but please realize how lucky you are, and don’t take it for granted. Because one day, if something really bad happens, you will certainly wish someone would stop and help you. Merry Christmas.