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 In the time it takes you to read this sentence, two children will starve to death, but it is really unlikely that you will ever know who those children were or why they died. In other news, the world’s press has gathered to observe the incarceration of a man who is accused of having killed a wealthy white teenage girl who was on vacation in the Caribbean. No word yet about when the press is going to gather at the site of the incarceration of the other people in the world who have been recently caught and charged with murder, nor are we ever going to hear about the people they killed.
Meanwhile, the American press has taken to the airwaves and asked if the wealthy white teenage girl who was recently lost at sea might have been involved in a publicity stunt. You can get coverage on almost any media outlet, which, of course, renders the question moot. No word yet on the millions of other missing children in the world, but I’m sure they’ll get back with that story soon.
Sometimes, I catch snippets of the news - of the professional provocateurs who make their money by thinking up things to say in order to provoke disagreements among people; or of the panderers who cater to our most prurient interests and call it “news” - and I wonder what’s happened to us. It often seems to me that the words of the Old Testament prophets are coming back to haunt us, and I worry for our future. Amos and Micah have always appealed to me, since they both seem so relevant. Verses like this one from Amos 2 are particularly worrisome today: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way...”
In the midst of so many things that are going on in this world, I wonder if we've lost our sense of justice. It’s easy for us to understand criminal justice, where the guilty party is punished for a crime of some sort. It’s harder for us to understand the kind of justice that makes sentences proportionate to a crime; that ensures that the poor or poorly represented are treated fairly; or that gives everyone the same chances in life. Given that we struggle so, is it any wonder that we cannot understand the idea of “karma” or “cosmic justice?” The prophets told us that we should not hope for the Day of the Lord to come, since it would be like escaping a lion, only to run into a bear. They warn us that we should not wish for justice, and who’s to say that they weren’t exactly right?
In the time it takes you to read this sentence, two children will starve to death, but it is really unlikely that you will ever know who those children were or why they died.
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