Good Deals on Slaves

I heard a really disturbing story on NPR's Marketplace earlier today. Slaves have never been cheaper. One hundred bucks is about all it takes if you know where to look. As I listened to the story of a couple of young Indonesian girls sold into prostitution by their mother so she could pay back loans, I had a sinking feeling that I was partly to blame. I'm not talking about feeling guilty because I'm a white male...but rather realizing that their poverty is somehow connected to my relative wealth. Or to be more specific, their poverty is surely connected at some level to a global economy fueled by market-driven consumption of which I'm a tiny little cog. I've thought about this for years and pretty much that's all I've done - thought about it. I need to go to confession, and do something with my body instead of just my brain.

What's even worse is how often I've used Jesus' words to Judas Iscariot; "...the poor you will always have among you" as a justification for my insensitivity. But Jesus spoke those words to Judas in order to flush out his greed so he could repent rather than be destroyed. Judas didn't get it and frankly I'm not doing much better. Plus, when I combine those words of Jesus with; "...whatever you haven't done for the least of these My brethren, you haven't done for Me...", well, that uneasy feeling I got while listening to the story earlier becomes full-blown nausea.