Haiti: "If You Eat Each Day, You're Rich"

With the devastating earthquake in Haiti that occurred this week (1/12/10), my mind has been in Haiti, as we have seen image after image of the devastation that has taken place.  Listed below are the lyrics and a link to a song I came across a few years ago.  It often runs through my head, and given the earthquake this week, I've found myself humming it over and over. 

Even before the earthquake, these people were so extremely poor--I don't think I can even begin to understand just how poor, since I haven't had the opportunity to visit yet.  Having spoken with friends who have gone to visit, it is hard to even hear the stories.  And then this song, a true story from the musician/pastor's experience, makes it even harder to hear about the poverty.  Have you eaten today? How many times?  How hard was it to find food/water?  I invite each of us to give thanks for the basic blessings we often take for granted, and pray for those who haven't.  And let us all continue to hold our brothers and sisters in Haiti in our prayers. 

"If You Eat Each Day" from the album Justice and Love by Brian Sirchio
http://bryansirchio.com/index.php?page=songs&display=119&category=Justice_And_Love

from Justice And Love
(Click on the link above to hear a clip of the song.) 
Haiti is the poorest country in this hemisphere
I go there now and then to get my vision clear
Sometimes it gets so hazy in this land of
I consume therefore I am

I was working in this clinic for the dying & diseased
Living skeletons with AIDS and TB
Organized and run by Mother Teresa and her sisters of Charity
I asked the nun in charge, Sister, what should I do?
She smiled and said I've got a job for you
Then she gave me a pair of scissors, and said,
See that man right there
He'd like for you to cut his hair
I said, oh, Sister are you sure?...

I mean its not like I have given
many haircuts in my day
But I was there to help, so I just smiled and said, OK
So there I was, this natural born Vidal Sassoon
just snipping that hair away

We struck up conversation as best we could
His English was broken, my Creole's not too good
But we managed to communicate enough for him to say
Something I never will forget

You see I asked him, do you think I'm rich?
And this was his response to me
He said, well how many times a week do you eat?
Well his question took my voice away
And then he said, you mean you eat every day?
And I said, yeah, and he just said this
Well if you eat each day, you're rich

Somehow that moment felt to me like Holy Ground
I finished his haircut and when I turned around
There was a whole line of customers
who kinda like the way I cut that one man's hair!

So I gave them haircuts but they gave me so much more
They gave me the perspective of the poorest of the poor
And I know I'll spend the rest of my life
trying to somehow respond

'Cause if its true as we often say that wealth is relative
It just might take the dying poor in a place like Port au Prince
To help us see this relativity from God's point of view
To cut through our first world denial with gospel Truth
And as for me, I know I need to receive this paradigm shift
That in a hungry world, if we eat each day...
We're rich