Last Sunday, we were discussing the recent earthquake in Japan as well as the conflicts in the Islamic North African countries as well as the conflicts in the Arab countries in the Middle East.

We discussed these in the light of the signs of the second coming of Jesus Christ.  As we read Matthew 24:1-8, we discussed the signs one by one.  When we got to the word  “famines” we noted that this used to mean the scarcity of food. When there is a famine, it used to mean that there was no food to eat.  However, now, there is a different kind of famine.  There may be an abundance of things to eat, but these things to eat aren’t food.  There may be food, except that the cost of buying the food is prohibitive that there are people starving to death in the midst of abundance.

We also talked about how our food is contaminated with lead, with acid rain, with other toxins from industrial waste and even from radiation poisoning so that although there may be food, the food has been contaminated that it is no longer fit for human consumption.  It is an artificial kind of famine.

Today in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, there was a picture of a milkman in Japan throwing away contaminated milk.  On the news, couples with small babies were interviewed regarding their fears of radiation poisoning in the drinking water in Japan.  Again, there is water, it just isn’t safe for babies to drink.  The water is safe for adults to drink but who would be brave enough to drink it?

Even the tuna industry in Japan is suffering.  No one wants to buy Japanese tuna because of the fear of radiation contamination and poisoning.

I raised a point that touched my young students.  I asked them if junk food did not constitute a major component of their daily diet.  I asked for a show of hands when I asked who ate chips, street food like fishballs, processed foods, colas, and other carbonated and flavored drinks.  They all raised their hands.

We are eating things that are not really food.  They have very little nutrition in them that although they fill the stomach, on the cellular level, our bodies are starving for nourishment.  It’s a different kind of famine.

The environment is so degraded that the food we produce is nutritionally inferior.  We are experiencing nutritional famine and yet, a growing majority of our people is obese.

My daughter used to sigh every time we discussed the rapture.  She used to say that she didn’t want Jesus to come yet.  She thought that it was not fair because she won’t have a future if Jesus came soon.  Just yesterday, while we were watching the news, she sighed and I asked her why.  She said that she used to think that the rapture will deprive her of a future.  She now realizes that the earth is so corrupt that there really is not much of a future to speak of.  She said, “I want Jesus to come soon.  We can’t go on like this much longer.” I had to agree.