Tragic Loss of Life

260 Souls Lost

So what was the final death toll up in Boston?  Three was the last I saw, and, of course, 144 wounded, some terribly wounded.  At the Texas factory, the death toll has risen to 15 with 200 injured.  Back to back tragedies here.  But did you see the news yesterday about the 260 killed by the collapse of a clothing sweat shop outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, with over 1000 injured?  (At least those are the last numbers I have seen…there is quite a variation out there.)  After the building had been ordered evacuated as unsafe the day before.  The workers were ordered back in by the owners the next day, told to ignore the cracks.  The same owners who are now in hiding. 

 

I got to travel to Dhaka last year, and heard it said that the Bengali people are the happiest people on earth.  And let me tell you, I have never seen smiles bigger than those I saw in Bangladesh…..sometimes on the faces of people who had absolutely nothing.  I passed by some of those sweat shops, some lit up in full swing late into the night.  While there are some very modern and beautifully structured buildings there, there are some that are clearly questionable….and I kind of wondered about the techniques they used….notice the bamboo in the pictures!  Since it isn’t our country, it doesn’t receive the attention that our national tragedies do, even though the death toll is significantly larger and the wounded exponentially more.  But it doesn’t have anything to do with us, right?  Except that the clothes from that building have been purchased by U.S. stores like WalMart or Dress Barn according to multiple articles.  CNN had an article that said: 

“The resulting catastrophe is the latest to befall Bangladesh’s accident-prone garment industry, which employs more than 4 million people — most of them women — but regularly comes under scrutiny for its slipshod safety standards.”  (http://myfox8.com/2013/04/25/nearly-200-killed-in-collapse-of-clothing-factory-in-bangladesh/)

FOUR MILLION PEOPLE!!   In “slipshod safety standards.”  And an “accident-prone garment industry.”          

                                                                                      

 I like finding bargains as much as the next person, but events such as this should give us all pause, especially in a time when we can find fair trade articles if we look for them.  We say that at least they have a job, but it isn't a job that really enables people to get ahead in life.  It is more like slavery at subsistence wages.  I would be remiss NOT to tell you that I got to see first hand that there are people working to help these women and their families have a chance at a better life.  Education in the most rural of areas.  Job skill training and self employ opportunities, as well as nutrition and agricultural guidance are among the things a few people are doing to make a difference in the lives of regular people.  It is a wonderful alternative to dangerous sweatshops that keep their workers in abject poverty.  You might consider supporting such groups, by making fair trade purchases and supporting groups that are working to improve conditions.

In Dhaka I saw toddlers playing in the dirty gutter with discarded video tape as their toys.  I saw individuals sleeping on pushcarts or three wheeled bikes, apparently the only beds they have.  I saw inner city and rural women, bound in poverty, but finding a way out through the training they were receiving. 

Anyway, does it bother anybody else that we have such a high value on lives in our country, but not so much when it is out of our purview?   Kind of an “out of sight out of mind” concept.  I also heard there have been tens of thousands killed in Syria’s uprising.  The tragic list of worldwide needless loss of life is staggering.  And it is also significant, I think, that the folks who died in Texas and Boston are in environments where they would have at least had the chance to find out about Jesus and enter eternity prepared and forgiven.  In Dhaka, such opportunities are extremely few, so the lives lost in garment tragedies there likely enter a Christless eternity. 

I guess I just wanted to share a bit.  For those of you going through a divorce, sometimes things like this can bring some perspective….because life could be a lot worse than it is even in divorce here in America.  For millions of people, their lives daily are far, far more tragic.  Pray for the people of Bangladesh, won’t you?  It so reminds me of Jesus’ statement that the laborers for the kingdom are few.  And as we mourn our losses here in Texas and Boston, could we also mourn those whose lives existed and ended in pathetically tragic circumstances?  And maybe give a second thought when we check our clothing tags…care a bit more about the person at the sewing machine.

TL:dr  Our national mourning could be expanded to also mourn those we give no second thought to, the garment factory workers in Bangladesh (May God have mercy on their souls.)

Jackie Robinson, God, and the Chicago Cubs

42

Got back from Chicago, where I went with my son and my 93 year old dad to dad’s first ever pro ball game, which we took in at Wrigley Field watching the Cubs take on the Rangers.  A fun evening.  Just the weekend before my wife and I had gone to see the movie “42” and so, when the players at Wrigley were wearing 42 Jerseys, I understood why in a pretty good way.  So today took dad to go see the movie, second time for me, first for him.  In my humble opinion, it is probably the best movie I have seen in years….a great story, a pretty clean show and a great message.  A message I didn't fully appreciate until I saw the movie.  I had no idea how hard things must have been for Jackie Robinson, nor did I realize that Branch Rickey was instrumental in the process of intentionally integrated major league baseball.  I grew up long after it was integrated.   Some of the incidents that occur are just staggering and hard to imagine actually happening here in the United States…even though I know they did, and worse.  And, of course, with all the stories of “ethnic cleansing” in so many places around the world…it is hard to deny that such hatred exists.

What great men Jackie and Branch must have been.  And there have always been great men and women in history who have stood up against the awful things of the world to try to make a change for the better.  And, of course, as we have seen in the last week, there are always individuals who stand up and find new ways to bring evil into the world.   In our generation, we still need people to stand for something, to make a difference for goodness and kindness and love and right and all those wonderful things we treasure in life and in history.  Prejudice, racism…and yes, even divorce, all symptoms of a fallen world filled with selfishness and sinfulness. 

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What is it about ourselves that causes us to want to prove we are better than somebody else?  That makes us somehow think we are superior if we can find a way to put somebody else beneath us, socially, financially, intellectually, politically….or as Jackie experienced, racially?  The color of a person’s skin?  Really?  Somehow that makes an individual inferior or superior?  Where I grew up, we didn't have many Asians or Native Americans, but there were Hispanics and Blacks in my schools, and I don’t remember even giving it a second thought as a child.   We just played our games, did our schoolwork, had our little tiffs, but managed to get along.  I guess because we all knew we belonged there.  And the most anybody had to prove was whether they could hang in on the spelling bees or who could run the fastest in the school races.  But even those things didn't make us better than somebody else, just different, or talented in different ways. 

In the movie, Branch makes the observation of how hard it would be to explain to God why an owner kept blacks out of baseball.  He has a good point.  Only it doesn't merely apply to baseball.  After all, do you think God made a mistake by choosing to make people of all different colors, personalities and abilities?  I suspect the intention is to see how well we will keep the command to love one another, even if the “another” is an enemy. 

I don’t know if you heard the aunt of those young men in Boston or not, but she kind of went on a bit of a rant about how much Chechen's are discriminated against, both in Russia and in the United States.  It is hard to tell if that was true…she seemed a little over the top, but it does make one wonder how much of her anger (and that of the young men) could have come out of the kind of discrimination that was practiced against Jackie Robinson as well.  I saw a note that indicated Boston hasn't been the most racially kind city in its past….the Red Sox were even the last MLB team to become integrated.  So maybe there is more beneath the story than we might hear. 

I guess this is kind of a ra

mbly blog, and you can take from it what you want.  But know that, in my opinion, racism and prejudice are a couple of the stupidest things humans have done to one another.  How much better for each of us to just accept who we are, and to be the best self we can be while we encourage others to do the same regardless of these kind of differences.  And I hope you go see “42” because it is well worth the time.  The acting is very good, the whole feel of the presentation is great, and it can inspire you to want to make your corner of the world just a little bit better.  And I hope you do just that.

TL:dr  The movie “42” offers a good source for reflection on racism in our day and age.