bath & wells: mission

World Development - Once upon a time

Once upon a time, a child stood on a ledge and looked down upon the universe. Shining worlds spun beneath her, brilliant with light and life, brimming with treasures, pulsating with wonder and mystery.

No more than a speck in the infinite distance there existed a small wayside world which reflected in every layer of its being the glory of its setting. Millions of years of life and growth had created a world of infinite diversity and richness. Here was beauty; in a mountain and a snow flake, in a forest and the vein of a leaf, in the eagle and the tree frog and a spider's web; in cells and molecules and atoms and the spinning worlds of sub-atomic particles, universes within universes. And here were creatures of amazing complexity with astounding bodies which could grow, repair themselves, fight infection and reproduce the precious gift of life; creatures who with a billion neurons could think, remember, reason, laugh, imagine and who had the capacity to love, to listen, to understand, to have, to hold, to live in common and to look out at their universe and grasp it. All this was the birth right of the people of this world.

And so it was with some bemusement and disquiet that the child saw that the people of the world had been assigned to two groups at the instigation of one group who called themselves "developed" and the other "under-developed". And of all the richness of their life, in its culture, creativity, spirituality and humanity, this designation in reality referred only to economic prosperity, but this detail was lost on the developed group who were becoming blind to truth. And they lamented the poverty of the undeveloped, threw crumbs of charity - a taste of their world and wealth - they preached that wealth would trickle down (thus tacitly assuming a position of superiority) and they imposed their economic dogmas on the un-consulted poor, but they could not, would not, see their own collusion in this sick charade, nor their own corruption. And meanwhile the planet shuddered, buffeted by unnatural storms and rising tides, choking on the acid fumes of the developed world. The temperature rose. Weeds of activism grew up among the flowers of charity. The climate changed, but the stakes grew ever higher.

And then among the tumult a voice was heard, quiet, articulate, strong, insistent, angry, an invitation to a dialogue, to break bread across the divide, to sit together, talk together humbly, to risk the possibility of friendship, to re-discover shared humanity and together be transformed, release the genius within, to see that the poverty of the one's excess was no less debilitating than the material poverty of the other and to dream a dream of holistic wealth.

Would the invitation be accepted? Or would the prophecy of Armageddon now be fulfilled? From her ledge on the edge of the universe, the child held her breath as she watched to see which way the people of the world would choose.