I've been thinking a lot about fairness recently. We live in a country in which very few people control most of the wealth--few people live in extreme luxury, while many people live in abject poverty, struggling to get by, and no matter how hard they work, they're never able to get ahead or put money in savings or do things that others take for granted, such as go on vacations or eat out at a nice restaurant. And there are no real defining lines for who suffers so much--single mothers, people of certain races, the elderly, people with the "wrong" degrees from college--all of them are represented well on the list of people who struggle so hard and so often.
Of course, I'm speaking of financial struggle right now. I know there are other kinds of struggle--many other kinds. But many of those are caused by financial stress, and it seems such a shame that so many people are unable to experience many of the joys in life because of the completely inequitable distribution of wealth on this planet. It's such a shame.
A reply:
Good morning to you, too. I will be with you--all you need do is be aware of my presence, and you'll know it. All that you wish to be, you can be. I will help.
Fairness? We could talk for years about that topic, especially about how human beings change as soon as they feel the slightest bit of wealth or power. About how they become so afraid of losing that wealth or power that they start to devote all of their actions to maintaining it, and the welfare of their fellow human beings becomes unimportant to them. It's a pretty horrible tendency, I agree.
But then we'd also have to discuss free will, and the fact that I'm not a micro-manager. I don't control people like puppets, forcing them to get rid of half their wealth so that others can benefit. Boy, would I like to. But that would undermine everything that I stand for, and it would make for a world that in some ways would be even less palatable. I feel extreme sadness for the people who spend much of their lives fighting just to make ends meet. Some of them haven't been prepared for life by their parents; some haven't paid attention to the signs of hope and opportunities that I've sent their way--partly because they haven't been taught how to recognize them when they see them.
It's hard to witness without feeling sadness, even despair. Our ideas of human nature are often formed by looking at the selfish and the greedy--who are really just the fearful--yet their actions are not at all representative of the human race as a whole. This inequity does serve some purposes, but it would take me hundreds of pages--discussing some concepts that the human mind isn't able to comprehend just yet--and much, much time to explain it fully. Let me just give you the short version: adversity builds a person, helps a person to develop; wealth does not. The human being grows stronger through tension, just as your muscles build--only by dealing with things that are difficult, not things that are easy. As Christ said, there will be poor always. Unfortunately, there will also be those who prey on them because they find easy targets in them and because they need to find someone weaker than they are to make themselves feel better. It's only an illusion that makes them feel better, but they need that illusion.
Keep feeling compassion. Help when and where you can. Give when and where you can. No, it's not fair, and it's not how I want things to be. But it's where you and your fellow human beings are taking yourselves these days--and that direction can be changed.
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