Thought for the
Week - 2nd December 2007
BAD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO NOTHING
Occasionally, I hear people saying that the reason why
bad things happen is because good people do nothing.
Well, I wish it was that simple! I think we have to begin by
categorising ‘bad things’ - illness, someone losing their
job, a car accident, freak weather, road rage, to name but a
few. Listening to the list, I doubt that the intervention of
a good person would have changed many of the bad things. So
is it true? Can we prevent disaster, or change the outcome
of situations, by adding our voice or doing something?
Recently, the news has been dominated by ‘bad things’ ,
the imprisonment of a teacher in Sudan for giving an
inappropriate name to a teddy bear, and the Labour
government accused of receiving inappropriate funding.
These two incidents, whilst perhaps they could have been
avoided through clearer thinking, have become serious due to
the actions of some good people. I am not concerned as to
the guilt or innocence of the parties involved, but I am
concerned that whilst everything is done to examine every
detail, with some jumping to conclusions as to the
intention, there are situations which are far more serious
that are slipping from our attention.
 In
the Sudanese region of Darfur, over fifty children, under
five, die every day through disease or starvation. 250,
000 displaced persons are living in temporary camps; others
scratch out a living and are prey to the local militia. In
our own country, parliamentary time and money is wasted in
arguments whilst charities struggle to find the funds and
resources to save children from abuse and men and women from
situations of domestic violence, to name but a few of the
worst situations demanding our attention.
It seems to me that bad things are happening and good
people are doing nothing. They may not be responsible
for creating the situations but they could be more active in
helping to find a solution. There isn’t much that is
different between Western and Eastern civilization and there
is one thing which definitely they have in common - both are
incredibly ‘judgemental’ in their approach and either is
equally capable of climbing on to the ‘moral high ground’,
without much hesitation.
Jesus encouraged his followers to avoid judging others
and to treat others as we would like to be treated
ourselves. It would be interesting, if we were able to
re-wind the video tape of the news bulletins of the past
five days and run that commentary underneath the pictures.
So, perhaps there was one good man at least who tried to do
something - it is a shame that his advice is not heeded by
those who consider themselves to be good, whilst bad things
continue to happen.
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