My First World Life VS Mary’s Magnificat

Last updated on: December 10, 2024 at 6:03 pm by Christy Thomas

My First World Life VS Mary’s Magnificat 2024-12-10T18:03:36-05:00 Christy Thomas

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With Christmas fast approaching and the season of too much spending, too much food and drink, and too many parties accompanying it, I turn my mind to Mary’s Magnificat. I am in danger.

Mary's Magnificat: the rich will be brought down

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I was in the middle of my usual retired person’s morning routine: the dog stretched out in my lap (we call this “Mommy Lap” time), breakfast at my side, all while perusing a couple of actual print newspapers.

I’ve long preferred print news because I tend to read more widely than with online versions. I‘ve found the online ones want only to highlight articles similar to recent reads, leaving me in the dreaded echo chamber.

On that particular day, I was reading a section on world news. Suddenly, these paragraphs leaped off the page. It was about a man’s choice between feeding his family and keeping the utilities connected. There were no both/and options available. Here’s the snippet:

A piece from the Wall Street Journal about a starving family in Pakistan

The article itself probed the issue of the Pakistani government’s promises to pay enormous sums to China in return for the construction of multiple energy plants. That’s bad, but the food contrast hit me on a very personal level.

To my side sat the remains of my breakfast: some homemade sourdough/blueberry bread made with ethically sourced, organically grown ancient wheat, fresh blueberries that I wanted to use up before going bad, grass-fed butter, and a cup of certified non-GMO, climate-neutral, plastic-neutral tea from a company in India that donates 1% of its revenue to the education of their farmer’s children. OK, I took that straight off the label. We’ll assume they are telling the truth.

And that was just my breakfast. This man and his family got one meal/day. I would have at least two and likely three. Not to mention plenty of clean water and likely a glass of wine with dinner.

One of the tasks I knew awaited me that day: clean out the refrigerator from the week’s leftovers that we had not finished, a result of several meals out with too-large portions being served. Yep, likely enough to feed this family of six a hearty, not scanty, meal for at least a day, likely two.

It was a chilly, wet morning outside, but my house had already automatically brought the temperature to a comfortable 72 degrees. The heating bill is rising as the weather cools, but my husband will shrug his shoulders and quickly pay it when it arrives.

Now, I can’t solve this family’s problem. Solutions, if any, lie buried under piles of political/religious/cultural/historical/ethical issues, i.e., corruption. And what I read represents only a tiny snippet of the unending challenges of this man’s and his family’s lives. I can’t even imagine how they could access healthcare or do anything even remotely approaching educating the children so they might have wider options before them.

Giving up all my luxuries will not solve this. Plus, I’m very aware that not far from my affluent neighborhood live people in similarly desperate conditions.

But to ignore human suffering degrades me. The act alone makes me less than human, denying any affirmations I may have made in my life about seeking to live as a faithful Christian, as one who is indeed made in the image of God. If I pretend that these sufferings do not exist or do not affect me, I lie to myself.

With Christmas fast approaching and the season of too much spending, too much food and drink, and too many parties accompanying it, I turn my mind to Mary’s Magnificat. A portion of it, taken from The Message version of Luke 1, reads this way:

He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.

These words serve as a distillation of the Gospel. This, a call for justice for the Pakistani family and all others crushed by the way our society works today—and this kind of suffering is not new as it disfigures all of human history—shows us the center of the Holy One’s heart.

I don’t want to be numbered among the callous rich. But I know all too well these days that it is scarily easy to enjoy “Mommy Lap,” sip my “ethically produced” tea, and blind myself to human suffering. It’s just so easy . . . .

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