Who Cares?

If we are angry with those who harm others . . . it is because those who are injured belong in some way to us; either by some kinship or by friendship, or at least because of the nature we share in common.

          Matthew Fox

_____________________

 

Why does it matter?

Why do I care that people some where in America, are losing the right to vote?

That women are be minimized and marginalized, their bodies controlled by men of toxic piety?

That a black man is plunged into fear at the sight of a police car?

That the rich get richer and poor get poorer?

 

Why do I care?

 

I am a person or privilege!

There, I said it!

I am white, male, well-educated and affluent.

 

My right to vote is not at risk

I am not a female whose uterus is under surveillance

I am not fearful of the police.

I am not struggling to survive economically

 

Life has always been hard, because I am anxious,

and have my wounds and challenges,

but life has also been easy (relatively)

 

So why pick up so much pain?

Why get angry over abuses of power?

Why worry about those people lying in hospitals with Covid?

 

Because

 

I am connected.

Like it or not, I am connected with all others.

The Sacred that is present in me, and in whom I am present,

is also in each other soul.

 

I am a child of God

“They” are a child of God.

 

I am loved by God.

“They” are loved by God.

 

We are bound together by the Spirit,

Woven together into the fabric of Love.

 

What happens to them, happens in a powerful way,

to me (and to us all).

 

We cannot compartmentalize.

We cannot separate ourselves into “tribes”, as much as we would like to.

 

This is not a Tower of Babel world where fragmentation is the name of the game

This is an Easter world, a Pentecost world, where union prevails.

 

We are drawn together, huddled, at the feet of Jesus

who says “blessed are”

all those the world would throw away

all those who are hurting

all those who are without resources

all those who struggle.

 

We are drawn together

I must feel the pain of others

I must be angry at the causes of that point

 

And I must seek, as best I can, to be part of the answer.

 

______________________________________

 

I am reminded as I write of these words from a poem by  Miriam Teichner

 

“God—let me be aware.

Stab my soul fiercely with others’ pain,

Let me walk seeing horror and stain.

Let my hands, groping, find other hands.

Give me the heart that divines, understands.

Give me the courage, wounded, to fight.

Flood me with knowledge, drench me in light.

Please—keep me eager just to do my share.

God—let me be aware.”