South Asia’s worst monsoon flooding in recent memory has affected 30
million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, destroying croplands,
livestock and property and raising fears of a health crisis
in the
densely-populated region. – MSNBC – August 7, 2007

[Click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYQXH0Ut4OM&NR=1]
   If you didn’t know about the above ongoing disaster, it’s not surprising. American news media have offered very little coverage of this horrendous tragedy. At least two million people in India and Bangladesh have lost their homes. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, have drowned.
   Imagine how we would react if the entire population of California was affected instead of Indians and Bangladeshis? Imagine if two million New Yorkers had lost their homes? Imagine if the entire U.S. Congress had drowned in a flood?…

   The scant coverage leaves the impression that there might be a
sarcastic but truthful postscript to this story that might read:
"Hundreds have drowned. Since none were Americans, why should we care?"
    You know the headlines in America’s papers: The serious, but dramatically smaller tragedies in Utah and Minnesota. And there are the daily reports of the activities of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. More teenagers are likely aware of the activities of Paris and Britney than they are of the location of India and Bangladesh.

   There is always an easy explanation for all of this. We care about what is, or what seems to be, near to us and ignore what seems remote. After all, many will say, the poor will always be with us and what can we do about drownings in India or starvation in Darfur?
   The answer is that we can choose to care. Each of us has a much greater capacity for compassion than we realize.
   Compassion is not a finite liquid measured out in cubic centimeters. Compassion is the highest expression of our humanity. And it is fueled by Love.
   Our humanity is enhanced by caring about those remote from us as well as those in front of us.
   Click on the link, above, and you will get a one and a half minute glimpse into a heartbreaking hell. By taking a moment, today, to be present to suffering and tragedy elsewhere in the world, we demonstrate our human capacity for caring. To ignore world tragedy because it affects "strangers"  is to diminish the presence of the holy in this world.
   Amid the disasters in South Asia and North Africa, we may imagine a myriad of volunteer caregivers who are reaching out to help their neighbors. We may envision thousands of Good Samaritans reaching beyond their own pain to ease the pain of another. And we may pray that God’s grace may flow into the anxious hearts of millions who, on this day and into the night, sit on rooftops surrounded by floodwaters, wondering if anyone will be kind enough and strong enough to help them survive – or if anyone cares.

-Erie Chapman