Sunday, January 20, 2008

what's the point?

a few days ago, a chaplain engaged a small group of us church folk (agency staff and seminarians) in a conversation that could be boiled down to one question: what's the point?

what's the point of church, of lifting up each other's concerns in service, of...well, of it all i suppose. and i shared a point of view that i've always held, but never really voiced. "who am i to not feel the pain of another?" it could be doctored up a bit grammatically and given a touch of elegance, but this embodies my struggle to feel the pain of another even though i am half a world away. why am i so privileged as to have been born on u.s. soil? so that my reality is preoccupied with future career plans and if i'll ever get married...as opposed to sanitary water, malaria and feeding my family.

who am i not to also suffer these things? to worry about the same things that people my age and younger are concerned with?

so i mentioned this to a few people around me and they basically responded with, "but that's so heavy, i would be crushed under that burden." seriously? would we be crushed because we were too concerned about other people? we are so fearful of succumbing to the overwhelming hopelessness that situations in ghana, nicaragua, cambodia present - but have we ever tried to fully make their concerns and struggles our own?

clearly, we will never know the full extent to which poverty, dirty water, unpaved roads, lack of education affect their lives, our privilege prevents that from happening, but what if we believed that their issues were our own? i really don't think we would we be crushed by that burden. call me naive but i think it would make us more hopeful because in humanizing the suffering "other", we can relate better and are more inspired to do something. and then on the other hand, if i am crushed under this burden, i say better me than them.

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