Some years ago Photojournalist Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize with a picture of a starving Sudanese child crawling toward a feeding center while a vulture stared at him. That image drew international attention to both Sudan’s suffering and to Kevin Carter’s career. But soon after people wanted to know what had happened to the child and what had he done to help? Carter had to admit that after spending twenty minutes framing the shot, he had simply walked away. Two months later, Kevin took his own life. His last note said, ‘The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist.’
I wonder if he would have felt different if he had done something to help ease the pain of that child, not just photographed it. Jesus said ‘whatever you do for the least of my people, you do for me.’ It’s not enough just to observe.