Have you ever found something that at first you thought was really entertaining / neat but only later be almost taken back / upset with what you’d stumbled upon?

Let me explain.

Tonight I was reading Anne Jackson’s blog and one of her buddies posted a comment and included a link to http://www.worldometers.info/ (where can you see supposedly real-time stats of all sorts of year-to-date data).

How many times lightening has struck Earth this year…
How many new computers have been purchased this year…
Today’s absolute population growth (births minus deaths)…
Number of bicycles produced this year… etc, etc.

At first I was like, “WOW, this is awesome!!” The numbers on the site, in most categories, are moving so fast you can barely keep watch. It’s astonishing to look at it on a global scale.

Then as I looked deeper I started seeing stats that, well, started to make me upset:

Hungry people right now… (increasing)
People who died of hunger today…(increasing)
People with no access to safe drinking water… (increasing)

I mean we know these stats are there but to see it in “real time” and watch as the numbers turn was just a realization that there is so much more to be done. So much more I can do. So much more we can do together.

Then as I read more these stats really struck a nerve:

Dollars spent on dieting in the USA this year… (increasing like crazy)
USA spending on perfume… (Huge, I mean HUGE number)

I’m not saying the last group of stats made me sad because I don’t think people should diet or that smelling good is bad, since I do love my Cool Water Cologne, but it put into perspective a very backwards economy or social system in which we live.

How is it that we can spend so much on the cosmetics of how we look and smell and not so much on saving a life?

Maybe there is a reason why Jesus chose to break a loaf of bread rather than pass out a few diet pills and a bottle of the smell goods.