Every
day, we are reminded that our world is wounded. It is bleeding war, drowning in
hunger; it is starving of deprivation and poverty. Every news story we hear, each article we read, is a painful knife to the heart-- the sense of
despair is hemorrhaging; we are overwhelmed. Each time, we ask ourselves yet
again why we think we can make a difference in a world that is clearly drowning
in need--- it is immense and impossible. And so, we switch the channel. We close
the article, exit the tab, and return to our comforting episode of Sherlock,
where at least the impending sense of world cataclysm is conveniently one
reality away. We allow ourselves to become desensitized, because it is so much
easier than facing reality, to recognize that while we sit here in the comfort of our homes, people are dying, children over the world are struggling to stay alive,
haunted by memories of loved ones, and wondering if they will survive the night.
We allow ourselves to dismiss the bigger picture, because it is too much for us to handle-- but what if we break it
down?
What
if the crisis in Syria was not the dark, dismal cacophony of chaos
the documentary says it is, but simply the longing expression on the bright,
yet neglected face of that young child? It is the same expression as my student
Thusyanthini back home, desperately seeking the yet unknown joy of education,
waiting to discover the thrill of learning. What if the turmoil of the Ukraine
uprising was dissected into the raw hunger in the eyes of that old
Ukranian woman? They are the eyes of the homeless lady I see every day on my
way to school. What if that distressing report on global climate change was
about that one tree: it could be
the one I decide to plant over the weekend. What if we don’t tune it out, but
break it down? Change is not a
vague five-letter word; change is a person, a situation, and we can create it.
The world might be wounded, but let’s take it one band aid at a time.
