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Something strange has been happening the last two days. It is insignificant in our everyday lives, our eating and drinking and working and sleeping lives. Yet, the ramifications of this phenomenon are far-reaching, and hold sway over what
it means to be human, especially what it means to be human in the 21st century.
Cyclone Nargis, one of the deadliest cyclones in history, struck Burma early this month. Last week, international ire and frustration arose as the ruling military junta in that nation refused aid. In fact, the junta today seems like a angsty preadolescent, both requesting aid on May 6th and then blocking relief agencies and failing to issue visas for relief workers. Thousands of people have died and will die from the aftermath of this disaster; and if aid does not reach sick and dehydrated people the number will reach the hundreds of thousands. It may already be there.
Yet, for the past two days, there is has been scant mention of this in the national news. This is because, of course, that an earthquake struck southwestern China recently, again killing thousands and trapping thousands more. For the past two days the world has watched as Chinese rescue workers have mobilized to the aid of remote villages, and we read of an steadily rising death toll.
My question today, here on a rare rainy day in Colorado, here as wildfires rage in Florida, here as AIDS steals life in Africa and the Indian subcontinent, here as the world experiences a food shortage, is this: what am I to do?
I do not mean to be crass, but this begins with the question: do I care? Do I care about disasters in Asia? And the only answer that I can honestly muster, in the light of what I have done to alleviate the pain and suffering in those places, is no. I've read the headlines, I've mouthed silent prayers for fathers who lost children, for children who have lost parents. But, I am stuck here. My wife and I give every month to communities in need in the two-thirds world; yet the world outside of Denver, CO has surprisingly little impact on my life here and now, and that is most often where my interests lie. Here. Now.
Another question also surfaces: should I care? Should I care about the dead and dying in Asia? This is, essentially, a faith question. It is a question for theologians, but a question for all of us whether religious or not: what is our connection to the world around us? What is our connection to my next-door neighbor, to the single mother in the grocery store, to the heartbroken father in Burma?
I do not know the answers to these questions, but I feel I must face them squarely. Somewhere, I know that this 21st century immediacy is both good and bad for us: good as it connects us, bad as it disrupts us. The news cycle makes it so that we only focus on the new, making true connection nearly impossible while information is more prevalent than it has ever been in the history of humankind.
I ask these questions to start a conversation. I ask because I want to know the answers, because I want to know if I deny my humanity by not caring enough for the dying in Burma and China, or if I deny by not caring enough for my next door neighbor.
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An earlier post on the Compassion Fatigue topic can be found here.
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