what does it take to make a difference?

my local coffee house, baristas coffee collective, has started selling fair trade coffee now. today i gladly parted with the premium of 30 english pennies to have my mocha made from fair trade beans.

the reason it's a mocha day is because there is a fine drizzle falling over town and that makes it a day for hot chocolate as well as coffee. my weatherpixie, however, is from another planet and seems to dress according to temperature and not precipitation.

i saw the screen of one of those i-points that the council have scattered around the centre of town (apparently the centre is also a wi-fi zone now - drizzle and laptops go well together i find). it was flicking through the headlines and showed that there was a nine year old girl was among the casualties of the weekend's railcrash. clutching my fair trade coffee, i wondered at the gulf between 1st and 3rd world, and whether the same incident (i.e. the loss of a nine year old's life) would make headlines in a similar fashion in sudan, uganda or palestine. i'm not saying that such an incident, wherever it occurs, isn't a tragedy, rather i'm trying to get at the relative views on sanctity of life/right to life.

Luke 16:19-31

Jesus said, "There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed and who lived each day in luxury. At his door lay a diseased beggar named Lazarus. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Finally, the beggar died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham.
"The rich man shouted, 'Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in these flames.'
"But Abraham said to him, 'Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. Anyone who wanted to cross over to you from here is stopped at its edge, and no one there can cross over to us.'
"Then the rich man said, 'Please, Father Abraham, send him to my father's home. For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them about this place of torment so they won't have to come here when they die.'
"But Abraham said, 'Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read their writings anytime they want to.'
"The rich man replied, 'No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins.'
"But Abraham said, 'If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even if someone rises from the dead.'"

i often think about what would happen if God were to raise someone from the dead here in the west, most recently i thought about it at my friend's funeral last week. this is the parable that comes to mind though.

final thought: i usually dwell on the rich/poor people in this parable (stupid rich ppl, glad i'm not one of them!). what about the prophets - are people unable to hear them today because they aren't even speaking? have they been seduced and silenced by luxury, and compromising themselves by paying 30 pennies for a mocha.