My God, what's hapening?

I look at the headlines and can barely hold back the tears. "South Asian quake toll nears 20,000," "1200 estimated dead in landslide," "Suicide Bomber Strikes Basra." In the past year so many numbers have rolled by on the screen that when I hear that only a thousand died I think, "well that's a relief." A relief?!? That means a thousand mothers and fathers and sisters and brother and grandparents and grandchildren and sons and daughters and friends and neighbors just dies. What does it make me if I cannot grieve for every one? Does it matter if I knew them? Each one of them is a human life. Each one has value. Yet why does the news only report the American deaths when an airplane crashes? Does being from a specific country make you more worthy?

The ills of this world are so great that I find myself questioning everything. At first I question God, but then I realize that millions more die from the works of man than any "act of God." I question whether or not there is any redeeming value in humanity, but then I see enemies working together to rebuild. Right now, I have so little hope for the world. We fight our petty wars and tend to our infinitesimally small issues and ignore what is happening around us. Yet who am I to judge someone's problems? What does it make me if I point a finger and say, "What you're going through is unimportant, his problems are more important then yours." So many people are suffering, dying. So many lives are being ruined every moment of the day. But what have I done to make it better, what have I done to change the world? How can I begin to blame man, or even God when I have not done everything possible in my power to somehow improve the situation?