Hunger

"Hunger is an unforgivable disease because it is the easiest one to cure. It is devastating to wake up in the morning and look east, west, south and north and see that there is nothing green that you can chew. During a drought everything goes yellow and dry. ...

"Hunger is dehumanizing. It gets to a level where you do not know how you will survive and you will do anything for a simple kernel of corn."

So writes Peter Kimeu in "Remembering a Hungry Childhood" an op-ed in today's New York Times. It's a powerful essay: almost unbearable to read. Such suffering is outside of my own experience and that of almost everyone I know well. Kimeu doesn't ask the reader to take responsibility for his past, but his last words are: "It is incumbent on all of us to band together and fight this very curable disease. No child on earth should ever have to sleep like that."

But what can we do? I feel totally helpless to make a response, as I don't see any reasonable charitable, governmental, or global political measures being offered that would effectively address hunger on a global scale.