C. S. Lewis warned about this dynamic. I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite, and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.10 Lewis wrote those words in the middle of the
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