麻豆约拍

Good morning.听 It was the mid 1950s and Old Charlie and Annie were well into their eighties.听 The cottage in which my parents and I used to visit them had two rooms and virtually no facilities.听 Time and again we and others would try to persuade them to move into a modern council house just down the road.听 They always replied the same way 鈥� 鈥淲hy would we move?听 We鈥檙e fine here 鈥� we have water at the door鈥�.听 And they did 鈥� a single cold tap outside the front door for all their household purposes.听 Brought up in a community where a pump at the bottom of the garden or even down the road was standard 鈥� they really did feel that they were pretty well set up.听 It seems a long way from the world as we know it today 鈥� and yet it really wasn鈥檛 that long ago.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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We were all torn between impatience at how stubborn they were and envy of their contentment.听听 I often think of them now because of the almost constant pressure we can feel we are under to consume more and always be discontented with what we have.

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The last fifty years has seen astonishing progress in the world in combating disease, improving agriculture and improving access to basics like clean water.听 No one would question that technological progress has transformed life for billions of people.听 But not for everyone 鈥� not by a long chalk.听 And the gap between haves and have-nots continues to grow ever wider.

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And I can鈥檛 help, from time to time, thinking that we ought to make time to stop, stand back and ask the question 鈥� why?听 If we could look a bit more critically at the gap between what we want and what we actually need 鈥� maybe resources could be freed up to provide basic necessities to those who still lack them.听

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Dear Lord help those of us who truly have all that we should want, to open our hearts to those who have less than they need.听 Amen.