If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following.
|
|
There would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western
Hemisphere, 8 would be Africans
| |
|
52 would be
female | ||
|
30 would be
white | ||
|
70 would be non-Christian |
||
|
|
| |
|
|
||
|
| ||
|
|
70 would be unable to read |
|
|
50 would suffer from malnutrition | ||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
| ||
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, we realize the need for acceptance, understanding and education.
And, therefore . . .
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you
can read this message you are more blessed than the over two billion people
in the world who cannot read at all.
As you
read this and are reminded how life is
in the rest of the world,
remember
just how blessed you really are!
Return to ECHO home page
Added 10/02/06
Return
to Poetry Page