Well, I think I just finished my Black Friday shopping - online, in my pjs, with my second cup of coffee (oohh, with whipped cream...). Bought the household a new fake holiday tree. Supposedly, I could pick it up in 20 minutes should I so choose. I don't - the parking alone would be ugly. And that's at the Big Box Home Store. Color me cringed.
My holiday dinner yesterday was lovely. As usual, I totally over-prepared. One does not need a 12 lb turkey for 6 people. Or three bottles of champagne and two of wine for same. But all in all, it was a great day, and my friends had a wonderful time. So did I. And all those leftovers? Gone gone gone. I told everybody that the only thing that could stay chez moi were the veggie dishes. And the carcass of the bird, stripped down for soup. Champagne and wine also, just for fun.
I did want to say something about what Susan noted in a comment in my earlier post - the disjuncture between public and private lives. (I hadn't paid real attention to that element within that post until she said something - so thank you Susan!) My discomfiture with the world events stuff is precisely because I see that disjuncture between my own and others' lives and the pain of humanity and arrogance of our so-called leadership elites. So-called because while they have the titles and responsibility, they rarely have the compassion to see or act beyond their own immediate interests. The exceptions are rarely acknowledged and then, on the rare occasions when they make the news, we see them as extraordinary, visionary, heroic. I'm thinking here of people like Desmond Tutu, Mandela, Gandhi, MLK, the firefighters and first responders who head into the danger and chaos of hells created by their fellow man or nature. Those we recognize; but they only become public in extremis. The everyday actions of others - the people who work at the homeless shelters, the over-whelmed social workers, the teachers and cops and secretaries who act everyday to make things better for their charges - those we rarely consider.
Here, I would like to acknowledge those everyday people. I'm very grateful for their consciences, their willingness to continue acting with compassion and humanity despite media and social neglect. The cops who do their thankless work for us all - and carry on despite being reviled when one of their own corrupts their profession. The teachers and social workers who give, give, give and are told that their efforts are not enough even as their paychecks are too much, who are condemned for the transgressions of a tiny minority. The first responders who race into the danger zones of the world, yet are told that they are not doing enough, quickly enough. The cleaning staffs of the world, who toil to clean up the physical messes that the rest of us create even as they try to be invisible. The nurses who are derided by their medical colleagues and cursed by the families of patients who misdirect their own terrors and anger onto the nearest target. The parents around the world that are doing their absolute best to feed and protect their families and are blamed for not doing more. The good-willed civil servants who strive for excellence without money, and are held in contempt in the abstract.
I decry the powerful elite in the same way - in the abstract. I worry that the faceless Egyptian military leadership is so worried about their own welfare that they forget the raw recruit they've sent into the streets to put down protests. But I don't say it that way - I lump it all in as the Egyptian Military. The Myanmar dictators. The Tea Party. The Syrian government. Yet I carefully and minutely break down all those blessings that I myself have. I write in the comfort and safety of a privileged life.
Susan mentioned that some of us take the world seriously. I do, and it frustrates me enormously that so many do not, or who have abdicated their own role with the disquieting feeling that they are so limited in making a difference. Making a difference in the world is hard and easy. Hard to have an enormous impact, easy to make a difference in a local sense. May we all remember that local differences in many spots can mean a big difference when taken in toto.
May your lives be generous and filled with purpose, and your mind open and flexible. Thank you for being.
3 comments:
I entirely agree with your culminating wish. So many people deserve our love and what is best. I hope that we can make some difference towards that end!
Well, you were far more articulate than I was! So let me riff a bit off what you said to what I was thinking.
As someone who is committed to justice in the world, I am always aware of being secure and comfortable -- this is especially true because on a professional level, this is very new to me. I try very hard not to take for granted any of the people whose job is to "support" me in my work. And I also try to make sure I see those who are often invisible. And I tithe to groups that serve the world in a variety of ways.
But when I watch the world, with so much pain and suffering -- caused by famine, military dictators, bankers, etc. -- this seems very small. Sometimes I wonder if this is true -- whether my small actions matter more than I think. I resist this as a nice happy answer to relieve my occasional spasms of guilt, but I'd like to work this out more.
So, like you, I do think individual local actions matter, and can have an impact.
I am glad that you had a festive and friend filled Thanksgiving!
^_^
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