A Christmas to-do list for a better world

Jarrett Scott
December 17, 2007
Ena Luke
December 19, 2007
Jarrett Scott
December 17, 2007
Ena Luke
December 19, 2007

A recent advertising circular from one of the major retailers in the country invited kids to put together a wish list of things they want for Christmas. There were toys galore, board games, bikes, video games, action figures – the kinds of things I wished for as a child.


Although I haven’t made out a Christmas list in a long time, there are still things I wish for. But these things cannot be bought in any store or wrapped and placed under the tree.

The idealist in me wishes for peace and an end to poverty, hunger and disease. I also wish for a better world for my children, their children, all the world’s children to grow up in. However, the realist in me recognizes that wishing is not enough. We need to be doing.


The following five suggestions might help you consider what needs to be added to your own list this Christmas.


• Increase education and schooling.

Education is so vital because with it comes both knowledge and a sense of understanding that is necessary in today’s world of miscommunication and misunderstanding. We don’t need an education in the three R’s but in how to work together to solve the problems we face as a world community.


• Eradicate the concept of “us” versus “them” and focus more on the fact that we share many similarities as members of the human race.


By eliminating this divisive rhetoric and ideology, we could move toward strengthening the global community and the ties that ultimately hold it together.

• Improve the treatment of women.

While American women enjoy a status of legal equality with their male counterparts, women in other countries (particularly those in the Middle East) are denied the very rights they should be granted as human beings.

• End world hunger.

Approximately 854 million people around the world are chronically undernourished and thoroughly incapable of obtaining sufficient sustenance. In addition, nearly 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes every day – a fact that translates into one child perishing from hunger every five seconds.

• A world without war.

The Iraq war has both economically and emotionally drained America. In fact, so far the war has cost the American taxpayers over $472 billion. Just think how many people could be fed with even a small percentage of this money. And unfortunately, much of the world now views America as a warring empire. It’s time for America to show the world a different way – a time for peace and understanding. Indeed, it is only through true understanding that we will be able to make well-informed, rational decisions that ultimately affect the lives of human beings around the world. Otherwise, we will continue to face an uncertain future.

Thus, it is up to us to make a better world. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said in a Christmas Eve sermon in 1967:

The Christmas hope for peace and good will toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don’t have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. We must either learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools.