No Survivors

I saw on CNN when I got home today about the plane crash in Sudan. Over 200 passengers on board, and the first estimate is that only about half survived. It was a horrifying thought, but as they kept showing the live footage of the burning wreckage, going to commercial and returning with new details, repeating the details that had been stated earlier, showing more footage of the burning wreckage, my perspective began to drift a bit.

This happens to me quite often when watching all-news channels these days. I know that as soon as the fire is put out, they will start replaying the video from when the plane was on fire. And I know that all I am likely to hear about for the rest of the day is this plane crash. And I wonder - there are over six and a half billion people in this world, and for the next four or five hours, the most important thing to talk about is the facts surrounding the accidental death of about 100 of them.

About three years ago, I was back in California for a friend's wedding. While I was there I visited my old church, and they had a guest speaker named Steve Haas, who works for World Vision International, a Christian missions organization. He proceeded to give one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard, but the only thing that I consistently remember about it was the first story he told. He was talking to a guy who had just taken what was widely regarded as a step backwards in his career and was trying in his reserved, emotionally challenged way, to make this guy feel better. And the guy hands him a pamphlet that says, "A 747 ditches today, and 424 people perish. What would the newspapers say?" This hits Steve pretty hard because two months prior, he was living in Washington DC when a plane crashed into the Pentagon very near to his kids' elementary school. The pamphlet goes on, "The next day, another 747 goes down. And the next day, and the next, for 365 days a year. Now multiply that by 20, and you have the number of people lost to AIDS in the year 2000. " What would CNN say?

This has happened to me several times since that Sunday. There's a warehouse fire in Cincinnati; two students on vacation in Spain have gone missing; just this weekend a man stabbed seven people to death on the Tokyo subway. And then, for several hours, the news networks follow the story. Is this really the most important story in the world? I try to imagine the response if, a little over an hour later, word comes in that another plane has crashed. Split screen footage of flaming wreckage. Conflicting reports. Unprecedented TV sensation. An hour and a half later, another plane crashes. There are no survivors. Before they even have time to recap the information available, another crash, and another, and another.

How long would it take before the usual pattern got shaken up? How long would it take before they bumped off the phone interview with a former pilot talking about factors that contribute to air accidents? How long before some newscaster lost their objectivity and started yelling, "Oh my god! What is happening!? When will it stop? Is there anything we can do?" I wonder. And how long after that - how many days - before the continuous coverage with its own logo started to fade out and turned into a daily update, then weekly, then occasionally?

The point of the sermon was that the numbers get your attention and make you realize the magnitude of what's going on, but what really motivates you to action are personal connections. He told several stories about people he had met who had been impacted in one way or another by AIDS. He also told of the statistics that said that evangelical Christians were less likely to give to a charity supporting children who were orphans due to AIDS than those professing no religious belief. He talked about a lot of stuff that was really powerful and thought-provoking. And he talked about the example of Jesus, who loved first, and with no expectation of repayment. And Jesus calls us to love as he loved. But if He loved first, how can we do that? How can we love Him first, when He beat us to it? By loving others first. By loving others who can do nothing for us even after we have done everything we can to help them.

I read the news, and I only occasionally wonder if these are really the most important stories in the world. But sometimes I am reminded that they are probably not.