Contaminated water. Malaria. Domestic abuse. Post traumatic stress disorder. Theft. Orphans. Widows. Alcohol abuse. Every day, everywhere. Every homestead, every person feels these evils. Yet, I find it astonishing and horrifying that these evils slowly and stealthily thread their way through my consciousness, establishing themselves as normalcy. When one first confronts such suffering, the pain cuts deep - deep to the heart. You cry out against the wrongness, the corruption of that which should be. But as one presses on, further into the corruption, one begins to accept the status quo - no matter how bad it is. When your 37th interviewee complains about having no money to send children to school, you calmly note the problem in a logbook, say that you're sorry, explain why you can't help, and pray for them - a prayer that has been refined about 50 times, become cold and routine through repetition.
The first widow you meet tells of her struggles, and you are brought to tears... the 20th widow's story is a few points of data in a notebook.
It becomes easier to say 'no.'
But it shouldn't. It should never be easy to see the brokenness of the world and shrug your shoulders. We should never be numb to evil. The pain should be there - every single time. The only thing worse than despair is the unfeeling of indifference.
Wolterstorff writes, "Suffering is the shout of 'No' by one's whole existence to that over which one suffers... And sometimes, when the cry is intense, there emerges a radiance which elsewhere seldom appears: a glow of courage of love, of insight of selflessness, of faith. In that radiance we see best what humanity was meant to be."
How does one walk the line - the line between despair and acceptance? For the Christian, that line is the only option - Hope. Hope lies between despair and disinterest. Or, rather, Hope lies beyond despair and disinterest. On the Via Dolorosa.
No comments:
Post a Comment