Who is Better Off?

I am amazed at the lack of common sense and humility in our Hollywood performers. It seems that the newest “fad� is to adopt children from Africa. It is the politically correct method of starting a family. Tom Cruise and Madonna have done it, regardless of their marriage status of lack there of. Recently when the father of Madonna’s child complained of being mislead to sign the adoption papers, Madonna’s spokesperson declared that Madonna was offering the child a “chance for a good life.�

Do these people really think they are saving these children from a horrible future by removing them from their homeland? Who is to say that they will be happier in the United States than in Africa? Wealth and happiness do not have a correlation. I have been to Africa and seen the poverty there, but also can give witness to their great spirit of community and family. Unhappy children were not visible. They were growing up in a community pulling itself out of poverty while remaining united as a people. Parents could go to work knowing that neighbors would watch their children and be safe. Young people have a sense of belonging and the spirit of the Church there cannot be imagined here. Poverty … yes, but there is not a correlation between their poverty and despair.

So often others look to the United States, and we to lesser economies, and wonder at our wealth and power. They do not see the long hours at work, the longer commutes, the bills to be paid and the lack of family unity. They gather in the evening as family and community to discuss their world and maybe look with envy towards ours. We do not gather but are scattered in various activities. It is an exception when an entire family sits down to eat together. Our young people and many of their parents are looking for meaning in their lives and wondering what it is all about. We see the poverty of others but do not realize the many blessings they enjoy as well.

It is a lack of humility and perspective that makes some think that these African children are better off in the United States than in their home countries. I have been to the Philippines, Mexico, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Korea and Croatia, as well as Western Europe, Canada and across much of our United States. The West may have the economic and military power but they have a great spirit of family, community and spirituality. Who is the better? At the end of our life … what do we want to look back at? I know in my many experiences as a priest attending those near death I have yet to have someone speak of job, career, power or money. It is family, friends and love that are most important to them. Jesus had it right all along!

It does not have to be this way. We can moderate our lives to live by the priorities that mean the most. We can make more time for family, our children and each other but to do so we have to let go of the chase for economic and prestige accomplishments. It is not that economics is unimportant. We have to provide for our loved ones and for our future. But if they do not have us in their lives, we have chosen wrong or put too much emphasis on the wrong area. That new car or bigger house is not worth strained relations with children, divorce and disunity of family.

Coming into the Christmas season we can begin to make this change. We can spend ourselves into debt and spend the rest of the year trying to climb out of it or we can simplify our Christmas and throughout the year spend time with our family and neighbors. By this time next year those that follow this advice will be able to point to the success of a more loving family and improved relationships. Those that spend themselves into debt and follow the old course of seeking material rewards will find themselves in the same insecure situation and are unlikely to even remember what they spent all of that money on.

The choice is ours.