In Kinshasa, DR Congo, there are 3 automated-waste-collection trucks to serve a population of over 8 million. Like many other sub-Saharan cities, people live amongst extreme unemployment, in dense townships, amongst raw sewage on the footpaths and mounds of rubbish/trash on the streets.
These days, I’m thinking that ‘automation’ is a double-edged sword. Surely it is a social responsibility for those who can, to share in our automation and technology.
Sometimes we don’t. Computers and machines are manned by the fit and the educated, while the unable and the uneducated are unemployed. Sometimes we do, but at what cost. Our limbs grind to a halt, promoting more unhealthy lifestyles, more associated unemployment and more sluggardry than a less automated solution might present.
Is physical manual work just slavery? Is it the ‘toil’ that God charged to man when Adam first sinned? Or is there dignity and achievement found within it?
As for Christian discipleship, when the bible says that the kingdom of God is ‘like sowing seed’ or ‘like a vineyard’ or ‘like building a house’, how can I know what Jesus is really talking about if all I know is how to press buttons?
1 comment:
Toil means to work strenously. I think I toil, I hate my job sometimes and find it very stressful, but I accept this as toil born from The Fall as a result of Man's original sinful nature that God speaks about.
As to Jesus speaking about vineyards and other stuff I know nothing about, well wasn't that so people back then had a point of reference. Today wouldn't he be speaking about the Kingdom of God being like working in a Bank? I think Jesus spoke in parables to baffle his enemies, to promote thinking and so that only the spiritual enlightened would hear and understand his words.
As for who cleans our streets
in Kinshasa, well I don't know.
The answer is someone has got to do it, and who that person is is resultant upon a mixture of politics, philanthropy, natural resources, war and social responsibility?
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