Seven years later ...

This week mark’s the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States that claimed the lives of thousands of Americans. And while many of us still ponder the events of that day -- events which brought down skyscrapers and struck at the heart of American society -- recent polls show that Americans are less concerned today about another terrorist attack than any time since September 11, 2001.

As the U.S. presidential election draws nearer and candidates and supporters of both parties continue to look for creative ways to “sling mud” -- instead of looking for Osama bin Laden, Americans are more concerned with the numbers of young men and women dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, the surging price of oil and food and the crash of the housing market. With wholesale inflation rising nearly 10% in the last year (the biggest annual increase since 1981) and unemployed higher than any time within the past five years -- terrorism seems to be the least of our worries.

And in the midst of all this, perhaps we can learn something from the poor ... especially those men and women in Third World countries who often seem so “out of touch” with rest of the globe.

Recently -- after visiting Kenya -- a friend of mine remarked that she did not understand how most of the people in East Africa seemed to live unaware of what was going on in the rest of the world. “Even though they have newspapers and many listen to the radio,” she said, “they don’t seem concerned.”










But perhaps the poor are more concerned with finding the food and clean water they need today. Perhaps they do not have time to worry about the things that “might” happen. Instead, they are concerned with the trials that face them here and now -- today and maybe tomorrow.

For those of us who have lived that way, it puts life in a whole new perspective.