I was aggravated earlier today. To be honest I still am. I'm aggravated that we live in a society that focuses on the wrong priorities. That we focus on and care about things that honestly don't matter one bit. It'd be easy to blame the media. In many regards, they are a big proponent in these misguided focuses and priorities in our lives. But you know what? They wouldn't be selling it if we weren't buying it.
What am I talking about? The tabloid trash. The US Weekly or Entertainment Tonight which talks about your favorite celebrities and their recent tummy tucks, nose jobs, latest sports car purchase, or who is dating/cheating on/breaking up with/marrying who. Or the obsession with an election that is more than a year away. Or sports. Yes, it’s entertaining and enjoyable, but how much does it matter? Especially the prima donnas who believe that they should be paid millions to play a child’s game. It's sad. It's painful to think that we view these sorts of things as having some sort of actual importance or significant impact on our lives. Why is that? Why don't we focus on real news? Real struggles? Real problems? Real people?
To be honest though, I can't claim innocence in this. I'm as guilty as the next person in some regards too. Take sports for instance. I'm hanging on to every game that the Cleveland Indians are playing right now. It's exciting and thrilling. And at the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter much in the whole scheme of things. The outcomes might affect someone's mood, but it's not going to be changing lives and it's not going to encourage me to help change lives.
I'd love though to see our priorities shift. To see our focus shift. Away from celebrity gossip and pointless debates. And instead be on those struggling every day to make ends meet or just to survive. On the atrocities happening right under our noses. Things we choose to ignore or don't realize because it might make people feel uncomfortable. Did you know…?
Did you know that Ohio (my home state) is one of the biggest hot spots for human trafficking in the US? Toledo, Ohio is one of the largest gateway cities for sex tourism, and children as young as 6 months are being exploited through it? Based on a 2009 study, it's estimated that between 100,000 and 300,000 children in the US alone are being used as sex slaves. That is someone’s daughter or son! Worldwide it's estimated that over 12 million adults and children are forced into prostitution and sexual servitude.
Did you know that close to 1 billion people are going hungry every day, with an estimated 98% living in developing countries? According to UNICEF, 5 million children under the age of 5 die each year from malnutrition. As someone currently working with a variety of youth programs within the military, it's almost sickening seeing how much food is prepared and is never touched and instead thrown straight into the trash. Children are out there starving and as a society we waste and throw away food like it's nothing. To us, it really is nothing. We don't think twice about going to a grocery store and buying more. It's always going to be available to us, so why should we save food and be less wasteful? Again, I'm just as guilty here too when it comes to being wasteful.
Did you know that roughly 1 billion people live on less than 1 dollar a day? People are living off of the equivalent of what we spend at McDonald's for a small fry. Then you have roughly 2.7 billion living on less than 2 dollars a day.
Did you know that more than 200 million Christians in over 60 nations face persecution for their faith every day? That roughly 150,000 and 165,000 Christians are killed for their faith each year. That there is a woman (Asia Bibi) in Pakistan sitting in prison who has been sentenced to death by hanging for engaging in a religious debate and defending her faith. Her crime is blasphemy. And there are many more just like her who are imprisoned or killed because they refuse to denounce their faith.
Why don’t we hear more of these things, these atrocities, these statistics, and these people who are persecuted for their faith in Christ? Ignorance is bliss I suppose, but it’s still ignorance nonetheless.
