If World Had 100 People, How Many Would Read This?

My friend Father Dan Madigan, head honcho of Sacramento Food Bank Services, which he founded in Oak Park so many years ago, has that way with words that’s legendary among the Irish. Father Dan also has a way with numbers which may not be quite as common with those whose veins run with Celtic blood. But whether original or borrowed, this reduction of the global population to a village inhabited by exactly 100 people may help to clarify the state of the world for many. I know it did for me.

Shrinking the globe’s billions to a mere 100 would result in the following:

First of all there’d be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from North and South America combined and eight from Africa.

Of that total, 52 would be female and 48 male, with 70 being nonwhite and 30 white. When it came to religion, there’d be 70 non-Christians and 30 Christians. In the matter of sexual preference, 89 would be heterosexual and 11 homosexual.

In the matter of the entire world’s wealth, just six people would possess 59 percent of the total, and all of them would be in the United States.

Getting down to the nittiest of the gritty — or should that be the grittiest of the nitty? — 80 would live in substandard housing, 70 would be illiterate, 50 would suffer from malnutrition, one would be near death, one would be near birth and one — just one — would have a college education.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Only one would own a computer, meaning that lone individual would have no one to communicate with via e-mail. On the other hand, he’d have no spam to contend with, either.

As Father Dan points out, considering the world from this compressed perspective “makes the need for acceptance, understanding, education and broad thinking glaringly apparent.”

He then goes on to point out some other facts worth serious consideration:

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive the week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you’re ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75 percent of the world.

If you have money in the bank and in your wallet, you are among the top 8 percent of the world’s wealthy.

If your parents are still alive and still married, you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.

If you were able to read this, you are more blessed than over 2 billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Something to think about? Indeed, a great deal to think about. The question is, will we?