Lucky

I took this picture last week outside Kilkenny Castle. It really spoke to me about life today and how really we don't know we're born when we think about how things were in times past compared to today. In an age of huge TVs, when most of us have a roof over our head, clothes to wear and food to eat, can we in this country really say that we are poor? Looking at this picture, can we really say that we know what poverty is?

The contrast between the two individuals is startling. The poor wee boy from 1311 is dressed in rags, and is completely destitute, whereas the modern-day woman is wearing warm clothes, is using a mobile phone and has a handbag at her feet. When I look at this I'm actually quite humbled, I think about all the blessings that I do enjoy and don't feel that I appreciate them enough. When I look at that picture, my heart breaks a little for the children in those days and how much they suffered. It's not limited to the fourteenth-century, though, even today there are people starving in East Africa and living in terrible conditions all over the world. In this country we talk about 'recession' but if we were even to experience a small part of what people actually living in real poverty do experience, we would probably think twice about claiming that we are poor and can't make ends meet.