Enough for EVERYONE

originally posted here

As my year with the Presbyterian Hunger Program progresses, I find myself thinking about the many challenges we face in our Nation and the World.

The specters of hunger and disease manifest themselves in many ways. Political posturing and civil war enter the mix and a bad situation becomes hell on Earth. Zimbabwe is currently in such a mess. Hyper inflation, political corruption and micro organisms have all conspired to bring an entire country to its knees and worse.

As a child that knew hunger, every time I see a child in the US or overseas suffering with too little my heart aches. Looking at these pictures from the NY Times, I find it hard to understand how a President can selfishly cling to power while a people waste away. It's hard to believe that neighboring leaders, whose citizens are beginning to suffer the same death, aren't crying out for action. It's awful to think that the average American knows little to nothing about these atrocities and those that do are rendered speechless.

Zimbabwe has become a scene from Lamentations and we see, hear and do nothing.

Three and a half months into my internship and I'm still figuring out with what "Enough for Everyone" means to me. Enough for Everyone. "Enough" is well and good. I can handle having enough. It keeps me in food and cloths. "Comfortable" in a word. It is the "Everyone" part that is hard to get my brain around. As an American I am especially challenged by anything that even resembles socialism. "Everyone" is big. In the land of plenty it is easy to forget that everything we consume had to come from somewhere and was made by someone. The challenge of "Everyone" is not mine alone, our culture has real problems with it. In order to come to grips with the "Everyone" part, we as a people have to accept that our plenty comes at the expense of so many people in Africa. Our plenty was extracted from what used to be mountains in Appalachia. And our waste is being spewed on to Peruvian school yards.

What can we do to change our ways?

The book of Luke opens with John the Baptist conducting a Q&A session with a gathering crowd. As a preface to Jesus' ministry and teachings John outlines a few planks of the platform:

"What should we do then?" the crowd asked.

John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"

"Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.

Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"

He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely-be content with your pay."

Luke 3:10-14 (NIV)

WE are these people. We need to ask the question, "What should we do?"

The answer according to John the Baptist: We should share. We should take no more than is required. We should no longer use intimidation to get more for less. We should be contented.

But we aren't. And all of creation is groaning under the weight of our discontent. If we sat quietly and listened, we would hear the rocks crying out (Luke 19:40). Now it is our turn to do the same.

Here are several organizations that are helping deal with the Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe:

• Give to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (write "Zimbabwe" in the comments box)

• Unicef's emergency response

• Oxfam responds

Here is information on how we can begin to reform our consumptive lifestyles to bring them more in line with John's message:

• Enough for Everyone

• Just Living

• New American Dream

Kenyan by Nature

During our visit to Kenya in 2002, I had an adventure that ended up with me drinking with a white Kenyan that had just gotten a huge promotion with Bayer East Africa. He was buying and I was drinking. Something he told me was, "Be careful. First you will get African soil under your finger nails. Next thing you know it will go to your heart and you'll never be able to get this place out of your mind."

This video reminds me of the African soil still streaming through my veins:

Obama and the White Supremacists

Here's a story you won't see on the evening news:

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Universal Healthcare or Universal Healthinsurance?

I just entered my opinion into the discussion on Health Care that's being conducted by President-elect Obama's transition team. As promised Mr. Obama is opening the many processes that go into a presidential transition up to the light of day and the eyes of an interested electorate. It's up to us to share our opinions, to add our unique points-of-view and find common ground from which to start reforming the way we do business in the USA. It's time for our ideals to match up with our actions. Join the Healthcare Discussion HERE. Or just share where you think the country should be going and in what ways it should be changing HERE.

Here's a discussion starter I posted on the Healthcare discussion:

One of the challenges we face with this issue is the vocabulary which we use to talk about it. I respect Senator Daschle and Ms. Erinson but even in this video we see part of the problem. We have come to use the phrase "Health Care" improperly. It has unfortunately become synonymous with "Health Insurance." Health care is what we get when we go to the doctor. He or She checks us out, makes a diagnosis and prescribes a treatment. In other words doctors cares for our health.

In this video we hear about a CEO of a small non-profit that is providing "health care" to her full-time employees. This usage means something entirely different. Her company is not providing its employees "health care" in the way a doctor does. The company is providing access to "health insurance." It may sound like splitting hairs, but I think it's a hair worth splitting. This is why:

In the current discussion, when we talk about providing "Universal Health Care," are we saying that people should have universal access to doctors that will care for their health? Probably not. More likely we mean universal access to health insurance.

The proposals I hear from most elected officials (including President-elect Obama) include expanding Health Insurance to those that don't already have it through a system of mandates and subsidies, covering everybody with insurance through Medicare, Medicaid and/or Private Insurance (both employer based and federally subsidized). Are we really getting any closer to true Universal Health Care? I would argue "No." Anyone that's ever dealt with a Health Insurance company knows that they don't really Care about your Health. The bottom line is always the bottom line. It makes no sense to support the broken system that is Health Insurance by expanding it to everybody with Tax Payer money.

If we are striving for Universal Health Care, why are we still talking about Universal Health Insurance?