How do I begin to write, begin to make words that have the potential to flow together, begin to write sentences that have the capability to harmonize with another; when in reality every word written here will be one of heart ache. Every word I have sitting on my heart, every thought I have resting in my head right now - they are ones that originated because of strain, trouble, difficulty and hardship.

     I was thinking about reality TV today. Reality TV is staged television programs that are intended to be about real people and real situations, its a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documenting actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors. Or so that is what it claims to be. But we look at reality television and is that reality? Is that really what our lives look like? to a degree, maybe yes. But isn't it interesting how America is the place that praises reality tv, that obsesses over it, that has an overload of it coming out of their tv sets. I believe the reasoning for that, the sole reasoning that America has formulated and molded itself around reality tv is because its entertaining & we can handle our "reality", only in our lives would reality be entertaining. Because in every other country, every other nation, every other culture when they are seeking reality, Reality as what it truly is: The world or state of things as they actually exist, opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. If any other country watched as much reality tv as Americans do .... everyone would be weeping, everyone would be distraught, everyone would break into pieces at that very moment because reality is not a pretty picture. But unlike America, other countries do not need tv to tell them 'this is reality' because they see it with their own two eyes. 

      All over the world there is brokenness, there is disaster, there is injustice. 19,548: people who died from hunger today (while others greet obesity) 4,142,297: deaths from water related diseases this year (while we pay $3 for glorified tap water) 11,083,375: Deaths caused by communicable diseases this year 37,799,005: abortions this year 1,675,067: Deaths caused by HIV/AIDS this year 880,252: suicides this year $328,386,578,999: world spending on illegal drugs this year.

   For some reason America (or at least the greater part of America) has learned how to close their eyes to what reality truly is. To what this world of ours really is turning into. I mean we can count those stats and an American may say they don't apply to him/her, we are Americans we don't have to worry about diseases, poverty, genocide - whatever turmoil the rest of the world is facing, on American soil life is good. But how can we say that when obesity is starting to kill people and there is 1,155,841,361 overweight people in the world right now and $175,610, 789 dollars have been spent today alone in America on obesity related diseases? Or the fact that toxic chemicals have all the potential to kill someone and there has been 8,038,935 tons of toxic chemicals released by industries into our air, land and water this year. 

    There is disease, poverty, death here in America; but not like it is in the rest of the world. And the rest of the world is being overwhelmed by it. There is a hopelessness that you can visibly see in the children's eyes that are being prostituted on the streets, there is a hopelessness in the widow's eyes that cannot find the means to feed her children, there is a hopelessness in the teenage soldier's eyes that he fully knows that he will never live a day without war. Those in the chaos of the distress wake up every morning confidently thinking, "this is life; this is all there is."

     My heart is broken. It feels as if someone has grabbed my rib cage, tore it apart and pulled my heart out to only slowly squeeze it to were I know exactly the wrong that is taking place and yet I stand here gasping for breathe for the acceptance of the little I can actually do to make a difference. Is it fair that we were placed here? Wherever you are, however much money you have, or the lifestyle you partake in? Is it fair that you were placed there? Did you have any say in the location you were born or the parents you had? So, then what about the homeless on the street or the prostitute in the brothel. You think you have the right to judge the alcoholic, the addict, the diseased? Are you better than that? Sorry to break you the news: but no, you, we, I are not. 

   Albert Einstein talked about how the danger in the world is not because of those who do it, but because of those who stand by and watch it happen. When we forget the refugee we are actually displacing them, When we forget the poor we are actually robbing them. When we forsake others for the sake of ourselves, we actually are forsaking ourselves. 

   We hear people speak on poverty, we read books, blogs, papers, projects on injustice, we watch news, broadcasts, documentaries on issues. So is anything changing? Is anything getting better? Has any revolution actually began to take place, in the world? (or dare I say in our hearts?) 

   We will always have the poor, we will always have the diseased; so why try to heal it? Why try to stop it? Why try to change it? Especially if it is not our battle to be fighting. I for one do not fight the fight in hopes to end poverty, end injustice, end death. I fight it to give those in the midst of it hope. To show them that there is more, that this life - whatever their life is - is NOT all there is! On earth maybe, but to give them the hope that this life is one life, one short life filled with hardship and trouble; but that there is another life, another life that they can live gloriously, healthy and rich and fulfilled and happy. A life after this one. 

* all stats came from: http://www.worldometers.info/ (honestly it was hard keeping up with it, most stats were growing by the second)