Are we blind?

Today I was made aware of the blog of a preacher at a local mega-church and I was slightly saddened to read some of the things this preacher had written.

In his most recent post he asks for money to help a group of 300 children in Haiti. This is an admirable goal and I see nothing wrong with wanting to help these kids. What I do find a bit disturbing is that I saw nothing in his blog asking for money to help the 2200 kids who are homeless right here in the Nashville area. How come he is so anxious to help children so far away and yet right here in front of us are thousands of children who need help. Not only can we help the kids we can provide a community of support and caring for their parents, we can make sure that their lives are better not just today but in the future as well. We have this chance to make a huge difference in the lives of people that share our cities and neighborhoods and yet we would rather send our money half way around the world to help individuals we will never meet.

Maybe all of this can be explained by another posting in this blog. A few days earlier this same preacher posted a list of 10 things he is thankful for on Thanksgiving. Number 9 is "The privileges and freedoms of living in the USA!" Yes, the USA, where we have the privilege of paying for health insurance that can be taken away from us at any time and for any reason. We have the freedom to go bankrupt and lose our homes because we can't afford to pay our medical bills, we get the privilege of dying at an earlier age on average than people living in any other industrialized nation, we have the freedom to have the worst infant mortality rate of any industrialized nation. We have the freedom and privilege to live in a nation where the incomes of a few wealthy individuals are considered more important by our government than the lives of thousands of US citizens who will die each year simply because they don't have the money to afford the health care that could save their lives.

Yes, we live in a great country where we treasure family values and yet it is the British who give their new mother 6 months paid leave when they have their baby and the option to take an additional 6 months unpaid leave. In France new mothers get a year of paid leave. In both countries high quality, low cost, day care is available to all mothers, in most European countries families are valued enough that they get to spend time together because they have at least 4 weeks of paid vacation each year. In most European nations they treasure family values enough to make sure that parents don't have to worry for years about how they will pay for their child's college education. In these countries they do more than just listen to their preachers and politicians pay lip service to family values, in these countries they actually help their families.

Why doesn't this preacher ask for funds to help pay for healthcare for those who need it in his own church? Why does this preacher not try to help the homeless in his own community? Why does this preacher not put his efforts into making sure the poor that can be found within a 20 minute drive from his church are fed, clothed, housed, and cared for until the can start supporting themselves and helping to take care of others? Why? Because kids in Haiti are easier, they are less problematic long term, and possibly because he, like so many others in our country, has chose to ignore the very real problems that we have here in the US, maybe he ignores these problems because he knows that he, again like so many of us, is part of the cause of these problems and he hates the guilt he feels when he allows himself to think about it.