Lost camels

Henri Dunant found the Red Cross in the 19th century on three principles: impartiality, neutrality, and independence. Dunant sold the idea to potential donors around the idea that not only was the mission of the Red Cross "the Christian thing to do", but that it was an economic boon to countries going to war because the work of the Red Cross in its mission to rescue, feed, bathe, and bandage the survivors of war, it reduced the cost to the governement.

In his survey of books concerning humanitarian efforts in a recent New Yorker magazine, Philip Gourevitch pits this idea of humanitarian aid (savings to the cause of the need for the aid in the first place) against the vision of humanitarian aid of Florence Nightingale. Part of Nightingale's mission was not only tending to the agony of human suffering brought on by the political ambitions of the governments involved, but being realistic about what was causing the agony in the first place.

Gourevitch quotes Sadako Ogata who worked with the U.N. refugee agency as saying "There are no humanitarian solutions to humaitarian problems."

Solutions must include a political component as well as a humanitarian one.

So, do spiritual problems have spiritual solutions?

It seems difficult to engage in solving someone's eternal dilemma without being realistic about the political, emotional, financial, economic, organizational dilemmas that dilemmas that we all face simultaneously.

In declaring the impartiality, independence, and neutrality of the solution we offer do we actually embue suffering rather than honestly alleviate it?

A man tries hard to help you find your lost camels.

He works more tirelessly than even you.

But in truth he does not want to find them, ever.

-Ali Dhux