Murder, rape…and statistics

“Police have charged a man with the rape and murder of Jill Meagher” @Y7NEWS

These are the first words I read this morning. warranted, I was still half asleep, but I wasn’t shocked at all. I processed the words without reaction.

I absorbed the details, as were relayed down every news channel… abducted, raped, murdered and buried in a shallow grave. Still, I had no reaction.

Our world is broken, a fat we cannot deny. But this mornings news and my lack of reaction highlighted how desensitised I had become. A woman had been abducted, raped and murdered and I simply took it as news, a factual statement of events.

Jill Meagher was a well know ABC employee, and thanks in large to a significant social media campaign, everyone knew she was missing.

I failed to react when reading the news but in the hours following I couldn’t get her image out of my head. Her life had been stolen in what police described as “a unprovoked and opportunistic attack”. The sound of her now widowed husband’s voice, came back to me. While Jill was still “missing”, he was interviewed and said he was in a “living hell”.

This is exactly what I think of our broken world on days like these. A living hell.

We are surrounded by evil every which way we turn. So much so, the words murder and rape have lost their impact. I hold on to hope like a kite string, knowing it’ll all  fall away if I let go.

According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, there were 260 counts of murder (known as homicide officially) in 2010. 260 lives taken. 260 sons, daughters, friends and loved ones.

According to that source there were 17,757 counts of sexual assault. That’s 3,175 more instances of sexual assault than there was robbery.

The only way one can make sense of statistics like these is to feel them. Look past the words and numbers and find the human element. The suffering, the families and the loss.

I was shocked reading the news this morning but not because of what I read but because I expected to read it.

30,000 signs of injustice

I was given 30,000 reasons to act against injustice yesterday but remained idle. I fear i have failed. As a human, a person of community and a follower of Christ but as long as we are breathing there is still time. I pray that my motionless state is not permanent and that you may join in being moved.

FACT: 30,000 people will die in the next 24 hours from preventable disease.

FICTION: People in the western developed world (aka those with abundant resources) are doing all they can to help.

A common cold, measles and diarrhea. Annoying ailments turned serial killers.

I do not write this to encourage donations, mission trips or specific actions but to open eyes to the world abroad. Donations will surely help and we can all do that but they will not eventuate if you don’t see problem in the first place.

The developing world shouldn’t be called the developing world at all. How can we call a lack of clean drinking water, staffless medical services and millions of displaced people… Developing?

They are the suffering world and we are the truly blessed.

30,000 people. That’s a big number. Consider it 30,000 daughters, sons, brothers or sisters and the number becomes wrong.

Why should a line of latitude  determine if we belong to the blessed or the suffering world?

We have a choice to make after hearing this…to be moved or not to be moved.

To be moved – act against  the suffering, rally for support, donate, pray, fundraise…help.

Not to be moved – business as usual.

In transparency i choose not to be moved yesterday but today i act. Tomorrow nay be different but i pray that it is not.

30,000 people will die in the next 24 hours front preventable disease and unless WE act 30,000 will die the following day.

PLEASE ACT NOW