Hunger Finds the Poor

In our Modern world economy, hunger and famine find the poorest wherever they may be:

"in earlier historical periods,... whole nations... experienced widespread starvation and death. Today the advancement in both national and international distribution systems has concentrated the effects of food scarcity among the world's poor, wherever they are." _ Lester R. Brown (as quoted by Ronald J. Sider in Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, page 8)

What does that mean? It means that our economic advancements, all the improvements in the "world economy" and all the trust we've placed in global capitalism have done little more than simply make poverty less and less of a reality to the rich and more and more a reality to the poor. In global economics we have done well to make the rich more comfortable and to push poverty further away from their eyes and easier for them to ignore. We have made hunger a myth to the rich and a dark reality for the poor. The answer to the problem is not easy but may start with us breaking out of this pattern and opening our eyes, our hearts, and our hands to share with the poor in suffering and in identity so that world hunger might be solved through sharing and community.