In Loco Deus

After reading about an Asian child who lives in a garbage dump with his adopted mother and who feels that it would be a disadvantage, they both think, to leave the security and cast-off food in the garbage dump that arrives daily in trucks, I realized that there are poor children in my own country whom I could and should reach out to, if I am unable to help this particular boy and his mother in Asia.

I could pray for them, I could send money to Asian charities, I could ... I could ... I could. It then struck me that I, you, we, have the need or possibility of being not in loco parentis, but something grander for children and people who have nothing and may very well never have anything in their lives. For the first time in my life, I understood that I need to be in loco deus (in the place of god.) Or would it be too bold to capitalize not just the "g," but the whole word, thus becoming "in the place of GOD." I think I finally got it, what it means to be human and see so many people hurting. I and the help I may be able to give, with whatever limited or generous means I may possess, may be the only god or God that may ever come to rescue of people in dire need.

I understand who I am now. I understand what I'm supposed to do and who I'm supposed to be.