Moment of Truth

For the people of Haiti and all people who have been hurt by a natural disaster over the past several years, I dedicate a little prayer/song that always humbles me:

let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
while we all sup sorrow with the poor

there's a song that will linger forever in our ears
"oh, hard times come again no more"

'tis a song, a sigh of the weary
"hard times, hard times come again no more"
many days you have lingered around my cabin door
oh, hard times come again no more

while we seek mirth and beauty
and music light and gay
there are frail ones fainting at the door
though their voices are silent
their pleading looks will say
"oh, hard times come again no more"

Let's take a moment to remember there were estimates of 230,000 killed in the Indonesian quake and tsunami in 2004, 86,000 in Pakistan in 2005, and 70,000 in China in 2008, all of whom did not benefit from the same level of generosity in the American media. Thank goodness Haiti has been a great example of our generous hearts and charitable behavior, and I hope it only gets better from here.

Sadly, it often takes something as catastrophic as the earthquake in Haiti to make those of us in economic "hard times" realize our definition of hard is nothing relative to theirs.