The traveller finds magnificent beauty throughout this world: Lions mating half-hidden in African grass, the Taj Mahal�s white marble against blue sky, and the dance of young Fijians. But the honest traveller also discovers horror, because open eyes always find the poorest of the poor: The trembling outstretched hand of a Nairobi beggar, the Indian boy�s body that has become food for the dogs, and the old island woman with weak limbs and strong tears. These visions taint Earth�s beauty, and haunt me without mercy.

There is incredible pain in our world. We, the one-fifth of the population born into wealthy societies, owe something to the tens of millions condemned to struggle in developing countries. Those who built up our societies did so in part by robbing the predecessors of those in trouble now. The global maldistribution of wealth did not occur simply because some people were smarter that others. It happened primarily because of environmental advantages, genocide, slavery, and theft. And, more to the point, our extravagant lifestyles today help keep the poor trapped in their nightmare.

If morality is not reason enough, however, we can justify helping the world�s poor for selfish reasons as well. Rapidly growing numbers of poor people guarantee social instability and the eventual crash of the ecosystem everyone depends on the eat, drink, and breathe.

Although wars, natural disasters, and acute famines make headlines, they are less brutal than the grinding murder called poverty. Each day 40,000 children die of hunger or preventable diseases. Nearly half the human population, 2.5 billion people, live in miserable poverty. About a billion are severely malnourished. Every 24 hours 50,000 people die because they don�t have clean drinking water.

These numbers obliterate any claim to decency we might imagine for ourselves. Remember that these lost lives, measured in millions, begin as individuals. Pain is felt. Tears fall. We must admit that something terrible is going on, not in a faraway land but right here at home, on Earth.

As the Allies liberated many of Europe�s death camps near the end of World War II, people who lived near the camps were sometimes forced to view piles of corpses. The townspeople were made to confront the gruesome product of a system they either supported or ignored. Half a century later, it is easy to assume moral superiority and condemn those who quietly accepted Hitler�s murder-factories. But what if, just like the townspeople, someone came for you and I one day? What if we were marched before a mountain of starved babies? How might we explain our support or indifference to the system which murdered them?

In the time it took you to read this, 70 children died. They are gone forever because you and I didn�t care enough to save them.

Sleep well tonight. I won�t.

Read it and weep