Ellis: "Rev-- I cannot believe that you wrote this. How can you compare your life in Canada to that of a child born in a tarred paper lean-to on a rubbish tip in the Philippines?"

I share your astonishment, Ellis.

Rev, whilst it's true that we have it in our nature to seek social approval and a sense of justification for the lives we lead, it's my impression that you are overplaying the stories of your own experiences of hardship and rise from poverty in order to lend weight to your arguments. You must surely realise that you would have achieved nothing had circumstances not been fortuitious. You was, however much credit you wish to take for your rise to prosperity, lucky. Contrary to what you seem to believe, there are an awful lot of people far less fortunate than you. You evidently made the most of the some of the opportunities that you discovered but, ultimately, you did not create those opportunities. Many others fail to discover such opportunities, not because they don't struggle to find them, but because they simply don't exist.

Come on, Rev! What you are saying rings of self-adulation and a lack of compassion.


"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler