Loving is the only way

Every day brings us opportunities to let go, and share the little we have no matter the sacrifice involved. If you have Shs50,000 you are going to drop into your savings account and you meet someone in dire need of it, give it without murmuring, because it might be the only chance you will ever get to help a brother (or sister) out.

The writer with orphaned children in Tororo. Loving is the only way.

Of course the financial experts and diehard capitalists will want to disagree. They argue that each one is here on his own; that the world is tough, that money is hard to come by, that every shilling must shrewdly be planned for; otherwise one may never get ahead in this world.

They may be right, but this rigid stance is not worth it in the end. While it is commendable to exercise some thrift, the day we quit caring and being each other's keeper will be the beginning of the end. How can you sleep soundly-on a full stomach when your neighbour is starving?

I say no one can ever find warmth or safety in a magnificent mansion surrounded with a high electric fence if that person is impervious to the needs of the poor, suffering lot. The standards of this world dictate that capitalism as is individualism is the survival mechanism; that those who refuse to seize life's opportunities should be left pay for their inaction.

But I believe all suffering emanates from exploitation and rejection one way or the other. Look at that three-year-old beggar in the eye; is he to blame? Do you blame that struggling mother who was abandoned by her husband after she delivered a child without limbs?

Even if a man killed himself, you don't leave him to rot in the open otherwise the stench will get to you as well. Whip the corpse if you want, but bring it down and bury it. Similarly, it is the moral duty of everyone with a heart to help those who are down. That is empathy. That is humanity. It is the ideal Mother Teresa of Calcutta elucidated when she said that the poor are our brothers and sisters—"people in the world who need love, who need care, who have to be wanted."

It is this love and this care and this communality that sustains a people; makes us belong; giving life its meaning and beauty beyond compare.