There is a question in every problem we perceive. For Billy Shore, it was embedded in a news report of a famine in a distant land. The headline said: “200,000 to Die this Summer in Ethiopia.”
“The calamity had not yet struck; the experts could see it coming, but they could also see that nothing was going to be done to stop it,” Billy recalls. “To me, the newspaper story read like an invitation to act.”
Almost immediately, Billy’s impulse blossomed into a charity known as Share Our Strength. Since it was created in the Fall of l984, Share Our Strength has raised more than $376 million to fight hunger. Recently, Share Our Strength launched “The No Kid Hungry” campaign – an ambitious effort to end childhood hunger in America that has already helped bring more than 34 million additional meals to kids who need them.
“It takes more than food to end hunger,” Billy says. “Without a doubt our greatest challenge is to make people care about alleviating the effects of poverty, to make them want to do something about it in the first place, and to make them feel that they can.”
Most of us, I suspect, can relate to Billy’s story. How often, as we listen to the evening news or talk to friends, do we discover something that troubles our souls and offends our sense of justice?
Against our will and almost without thought, we are tempted to ask how God could let this happen. We are like the mystic who, deep in prayer, considered the poor, the hungry and homeless, and cried out, “Oh Lord, I know you are a loving God but how can you permit these evils to exist and do nothing to help these suffering people?” In the silence of the heart came the answer. “I have done something about them. I made you.”
The most persistent question in life is – “What are you going to do about it? Like Billy Shore, we must find the courage to listen to our goodness and act on it.
Thank you for this inspiring reminder of why we need to act.