What, then, must be done?
I've seen a lot of anger in blogs about Katrina. I think a lot of it stems from frustration and feelings of powerlessness.
"Why won't/didn't they listen?" (Insert the they of your choice.)
It is horrible to witness things getting a whole lot worse for many, many hundreds of thousands of people. All at once. And to realize that there's little we can do about it.
A century ago, we would have read about it a week later in a newspaper (depending on where we lived). Two centuries ago, we would have read about it in a broadside, a month or two later, if we could read. A thousand years ago, we might never have heard about it, except as a rumor about an exotic land. Three thousand years ago, it would have been the subject of myth: the drowned city.
We know more than we know what to do with.
I had a long chat with Amy. What are we do with our strong feelings in response to this, or any overwhelming perception of human suffering?
It seem to me we must feel what we feel, acknowledge it and ~ perhaps ~ express it. And then, and this is the hard part, we must either do something motivated by those feelings or we must let them go. Or both. To marinate in anger, sorrow, rage, resentment, outrage, despair, or pity is to contribute exactly: nothing.
It does not make us better people. It does not make the world a better place.
Pray for the stricken, write your congressman, make a donation, volunteer your time, take in a refugee, give away all your possessions and serve the poor. Decide what you are actually willing to do with your pain or your anguish or your rage. Then do that and let the rest go.
Easy to say, hard to practice.
"Why won't/didn't they listen?" (Insert the they of your choice.)
It is horrible to witness things getting a whole lot worse for many, many hundreds of thousands of people. All at once. And to realize that there's little we can do about it.
A century ago, we would have read about it a week later in a newspaper (depending on where we lived). Two centuries ago, we would have read about it in a broadside, a month or two later, if we could read. A thousand years ago, we might never have heard about it, except as a rumor about an exotic land. Three thousand years ago, it would have been the subject of myth: the drowned city.
We know more than we know what to do with.
I had a long chat with Amy. What are we do with our strong feelings in response to this, or any overwhelming perception of human suffering?
It seem to me we must feel what we feel, acknowledge it and ~ perhaps ~ express it. And then, and this is the hard part, we must either do something motivated by those feelings or we must let them go. Or both. To marinate in anger, sorrow, rage, resentment, outrage, despair, or pity is to contribute exactly: nothing.
It does not make us better people. It does not make the world a better place.
Pray for the stricken, write your congressman, make a donation, volunteer your time, take in a refugee, give away all your possessions and serve the poor. Decide what you are actually willing to do with your pain or your anguish or your rage. Then do that and let the rest go.
Easy to say, hard to practice.
Labels: politics
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