Last Friday was the end of the world, supposedly. Rumors were rife that the Mayan calendar had come to an end.
The day came and went, and there was much mock celebration that the world will continue as before. And just as the world will continue as before, so will the situation around the world continue as before. The end of the world seems to be a gigantic event, but when seen in individual proportions, how often does the end of the world come to people less fortunate than us?
We don’t need to look far to observe this. Every day the end of the world comes to children who haven’t even learned the word “world”, who haven’t walked their first steps. Every day the world ends for a child who has been orphaned by AIDs. Between 2000 and 2010 we observed the end of the world for 92 million children. That is equivalent to the Haiti earthquake happening every 10 days.
It puts the world in perspective doesn’t it? What can we give of our world to delay the end of the world for others? What does the end of the world mean but the destruction of life? No meteor showers need to occur for us to realize that around us, we can delay the end of the world, child by child, day by day.
Roberta Rizzo