Hello everybody! I’m back again with lots to say, and I thought I’d pick up where I left off on the Isles of Scilly. Because while we were there, two superyachts moored up just outside St. Mary’s harbour. The first one was a normal white colour, and all very sparkling and lavish. And my owner joked that it probably belonged to some Russian oligarch who was busy snipping away at Britain’s underwater cables. So, he looked the yacht up on his ‘magic screen,’ and sure enough, it was indeed registered to a Russian billionaire.
Then, a couple of days later, a second, far more sinister-looking craft came into St. Mary’s harbour. It was a dark grey ‘stealth ship’ and looked as if it should have belonged to the evil villain in a James Bond movie. And it was called the ‘Shinkai,’ which apparently, in Japanese, means ‘Deep Water.’ My owner had never seen a vessel like it before, so once again, he took out his ‘magic screen,’ to find out all about it. And he read that the ‘Shinkai’ belongs to a Belgian sugar billionaire. It comes equipped with a 6.3 tonne submarine capable of carrying three humans, a Toyota Landcruiser, and an electric Jet-Ski, all of which could be hauled on and off the vessel by a seven-tonne crane located on the stern. And he read that the ‘Shinkai’ had cost more than £82 million to build.
These two superyachts made me think of all of the imbalances in the human world. Because instead of every human being equal, there are super-rich humans at one end of the scale, and super-poor humans falling away at the other. And as that bright orange man in the White House says, human life is all about coming out on top of the pile as ‘a winner’ instead of ‘a loser.’ You need to grab all you can, while you can, even if it’s at the expense of others. That certainly seems to be the philosophy of a great many human leaders, who become fabulously rich by creaming off wealth from the countries that they govern. For example, the current human leaders of Turkey, North Korea and South Africa are all sitting on personal fortunes of around £5Billion. And Mr Putin is said to have creamed off more than £200Billion for himself from the Russian state.
Of course, the owner of the ‘Shinkai’ may be a very kind and generous human. But I wonder how much good he could have done in the world if he’d only donated his £82Million to charity instead of spending it on his yacht? I put this question to several human charities. ‘WaterAid’ says that £82Million would fund clean water projects in 22 of the world’s poorest countries, providing clean water for millions of people. ‘Sightsavers’ says that £82Million would pay for 502,000 trachoma operations and a further 8.3 million cataract operations. And here in the southwest, our local charity ‘ShelterBox’ says that £82Million would pay for 138,983 emergency shelter boxes which would go out to the victims of natural disasters and humans displaced by war.
Apparently, the ‘Shinkai’ only has a ranking of no. 789 in the world’s top 1000 superyachts, meaning that there are another 788 which have cost even more, and are even more lavish. So, as a small feathery parrot, I have to ask the question: ‘Where are human priorities? What really has value? And what will most please our loving Creator?’ Because we all have a chance to do some good, while we’re living out our lives here on Earth. And we’re not on this planet for very long, and the choices that we make will shape our long-term future. So maybe it’s time to start giving back today……
“God gives us things to share; God doesn’t give us things to hold.”
(Mother Teresa)
“The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but it’s donation.” (Corrie ten Boon)
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