The world is flat.
Or so Thomas Friedman argued in his 2005 book. Globalization has brought about an increased level of mobility, exchange of ideas, and interconnectivity between people of previously distant worlds. The Maasai warriors we met last week in the Tanzanian bush had cell phones clipped to the same belts that held their traditional knives. I have heard Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On from the Titanic soundtrack played in more than fifteen countries (yes, I’ve been counting for years). I once saw a fully veiled Muslim woman in the customs line in Amman, Jordan wearing an irresistibly ironic Playboy bunny jacket over her long black burka.
By definition, globalization is everywhere. So, if ideas and people can move at an exponentially more rapid rate that ever before, that means opportunities for everyone in the world to enjoy the same rights, privileges, and possibilities that we do are also widespread. Right?
Absolutely not.
Earlier in the year I was reading The Power of Place on my Kindle in my tent in Ecuador, and it explained in detail just how much our lives are still determined by our place of birth and the social status of our families. The myth of the flat world that allows anyone with a good enough work ethic to live as we do was only created to help the privileged few justify the excesses of their existence when juxtaposed with the stagnant poverty of the vast majority of planet Earth’s citizens.
Sorry, but the world is still not flat.
I’m sitting in a middle seat on a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi to Bangkok reading a three-month-old issue of National Geographic. Like any good former anthropology student, this is my favorite magazine, so I was excited to stumble across a copy in the free pile this month. It’s been in my backpack for a week, waiting to be perused at my leisure during our nine-hour flight.
As I thumbed through the pages, gazed at the stunning photographs with a tenth-commandment-breaking level of jealousy over the photographers’ skills, and read some of the articles more in-depth, I had no idea I was about to have one of those moments where you step back, see your life from a bird’s eye view, and realize just how rare and blessed your existence is.
And that’s when I turned the page to the article about child brides in Yemen and India.
To summarize a heartbreaking and fury-inciting article, an estimated 10 to 12 million girls in the developing world marry before the age of 18 every year. A few particularly feisty ones fight back and make headlines with their amazing stories, but the vast majority have no idea that their lives could turn out any other way.
They have grown up mostly in rural areas with less than a fifth grade education level in male-dominated worlds where their best chance of avoiding rape is to succumb to an arranged business deal of a marriage, sometimes at as early as four or five years old to a man as old as 60.
Some of them are so unaware of what is happening to them that nurses at local clinics have to quickly brief them on “the birds and the bees” while they are in labor with their first child.
Some of them are so miserable that they take part in the practice of intentionally lighting themselves on fire because they believe it will kill them instantly, only to survive and suffer months of excruciating recovery and years of ostracism because of their mutilated faces. There have even been reports of girls bleeding to death because their internal organs were ruptured by forced sexual intercourse before their bodies were ready.
As I finished the article and angrily contemplated what I could do to help, I looked up and saw the TV in the seat back in front of me scrolling the constant flight summary data. It displayed a map of the world zoomed in on the part we’re flying over, showing a red line that traced our flight path. In this little window of the world that we’re traveling through, I saw both Yemen and India. Various cities mentioned in the article were staring back at me from the screen ten inches in front of my face.
And it hit me.
I am sitting here in my middle seat flying over the girls I have been reading about. I am literally 35,000 feet above them right now. If I jumped out of this plane and parachuted down, I could potentially land in one of the villages where a secret wedding ceremony is taking place tonight to unite a six-year-old to her 54-year-old groom and effectively end her chances of education and a better life.
I could land in another world.
And then I thought, what stopped me from being born in a world like that?
Nothing.
I was born in a world like that.
I was just born in a part of that world where I am shielded from the pain of things like female genital mutilation, child slavery, sex tourism, and underage marriage.
I was born in the part of that world that teaches me I can do anything, I should follow my dreams, and I have a host of undeniable human rights.
I was born in the part of that world that tells me the world is flat and hands me an American passport so that I can go on my merry way around the globe, believing that globalization has made possible the freedom and mobility I cherish.
But why me?
Why did I get to skip out on the horrors of poverty, war, and objectification that are standard issue in the daily lives of people just like me all over the world?
Why did I get parents that didn’t die of AIDS and an expensive private education when most people struggle for their basic necessities?
Why does my passport give me an open door to the world, while most people dream of obtaining a visa that they’ll never get?
Why do I get to read about what it’s like to be a child bride in Yemen from my middle seat on Kenya Airways instead of already being the mother of eight children in a village somewhere?
I don’t know the answer to most of these questions, but I can tell you that globalization, luck of the draw, or entitlement is not it.
As cliche as it sounds, the only way I can sleep at night on my pillow-top mattress in my privileged American suburb while 45% of Guatemalan children are chronically malnourished and living in the streets is to believe that God put me where I am for a reason that’s far beyond his loving desire to provide for my needs and give me a happy life. He put me in a family that would love me and keep the emotional scarring to a minimum, provided for me to get a high quality education, and allowed me to travel the world and see its inequalities firsthand, not so that I would have a sweet photo album to upload to Facebook, but so I would have the resources, experience, and passion to take action.
He gave me my life not so I would sit back and bask in it, but so that I would take what I’ve been given to radically affect the lives of people around the world for the better.
In situations like this I have always looked to the verse, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”
If you’re reading this and you don’t already know this, let me enlighten you: You are blessed beyond comprehension. I have personally seen what our lives could have looked like, and I can tell you that you have been so blessed, so now it’s time to think about why and what you’re supposed to do with that information.
I challenge every person reading this to ask yourself the following questions:
- What do I have that I don’t deserve? (Hint: this should be a long list)
- How would my life be different if I were born in, say, rural Burkina Faso, communist North Korea, or religiously isolated Saudi Arabia?
- Why was I born where I was and given the opportunities I was given instead of being born in one of those places?
- What should I do with what God has given me?
If God gives you a little and you are faithful with that little, he will give you more.
But what if God gives you a lot to start with?
I would say that means you have to be extra faithful. If God gives you a lot, it must mean he plans on doing a lot with you. He plans on using you and all the resources he has given you to get a lot of work done for the kingdom.
But that’s going to require a change of perspective on your part. That’s going to require you to embrace the idea that your entire existence is not about you. It’s about allowing God to work through you for the good of other people.
So I think it’s time for all of us to get out of our middle seats, stop restricting our exposure to the world’s pain to the pages of a National Geographic, and start figuring out how to live in the world of plenty in a way that provides for the world of need.
To whom much is given, much is required.
What does God require of you?
