Cancer or hunger?  Neither is good (unless the latter is the result of deliberate meditation, fasting, or contemplation).  How do we decide which is the more necessary fight?  Each year, in many parts of the West, various anti-cancer and anti-hunger organizations plan fundraising events for their causes.  Repeatedly, the anti-cancer events raise much more money than do those directed at ending hunger around the world.
     No one wants to see people die of cancer.  Yet no one enjoys knowing that people die of hunger, either.  On the whole, it seems that those who succumb to cancer live primarily in the affluent West, while those who die of hunger live primarily in the poorer regions of the world.  In addition, while those who perish from cancer usually do so in the company, or at least under the notice of one or many loved ones, those who die of starvation often do so in the bleakest and loneliest of circumstances.  In general, we do not see obituaries for them, nor do we see them remembered with memoriams at Relay for Life rallies.  By and large, they die forgotten.
     I certainly do not intend to discount the immense suffering that a death from cancer brings to both victim and family.  It is wonderful to see, however, when the people of the West emulate Jesus more fully in allocating their resources, that is, when they devote as many resources and communal resolve to ending hunger as they do to ending cancer. Jesus healed disease, yes, but he also fed hungry people.  We who can are to do likewise.
     After all, does not God love everyone?