Another year goes by, and I ain't
feelin' any older,
The world outside, is just getting
colder...
I'm more afraid now – more than I
have ever been,
Lord, be with me, Lord, be with
me...
As I look back on the January days of
my life I have lived, I see many flaws in my character. My admission
here serves as a disclaimer for my lack of experience on this subject
– I speak as someone unaccustomed to loss, unfamiliar with
conflict, with full trust remaining in most everyone that I have met
and without fear of any of the above. In short, I am inexperienced
with life – nearly everyone older than I has met with these things
above, and has in my opinion allowed these things to change them for
the worse. However, my experience usually shows that age breeds
wisdom, and thus I must ask forgiveness of my elders here if my words
seem harsh and unyielding. If you consider me incorrect, then please
consider it merely the wide-eyed optimism or cynicism that comes with
youth.
Today I speak of division. It seems
bred into me from a young age, whenever I go anywhere, to another
community – the usage of the word irks me, but I plod on –
whenever I see a stranger, whenever I judge another person –
there's that word again – whenever I watch the news about another
nation's qualms – I cannot help but use this word! - I see, the
word, another.
Another
nation, another people group, another ethnicity, another political
party, another family, another family member... them.
This
word grates at me, I wish I could only allow it out for its simple
and un-connotated meaning, to denote a second item, being spoken
about in third person, much like one would relate one box to a pile
of boxes - “oh, put that package along with the others. We'll sort
them later.” This word, and its meaning, have been used to much
wider cultural meanings, to speak about that
person,
or that
child, or that
people group. The mere mention of that,
or them
nowadays subconsiously triggers whatever images of division to pop
into my head – a grey plane separating into equal parts black and
white, a group of people
shunning another...
The
inspiration for this piece directly was a Facebook image I saw that
boasted, “Homeless servicemen should come before any refugee”. I
responded to the tone of, “Why should someone who chose war be
selected above one whom war was put upon them? The serviceman has a
home to return to, the refugee has left theirs burning to dust.” I
was told that the servicemen are our
friends,
our family,
our people, and
thus should take precedence over... them.
I was told, and was compelled by, the other Middle Eastern countries
haven't taken in the people that undoubtedly would have more in
common with these refugees than Americans would, and would integrate
them better. But still... them.
Them
sucks. Them
is an ugly word.
I
propose the image: on the global scale, there is a veteran and a
refugee sitting on our lawn, starving to death. Which do you take in?
The
Parable of the Good Samaritan in scriptures would be useful as a
starting point for my answer. For those who do not know it, Jesus is
asked “who is our neighbor?” and responds thus: A man walking
along the road is set upon by bandits, beaten within an inch of
death, stripped and left for dead. A priest and a pharisee separately
walk by, walking to the other side of the road to avoid the unclean
man. A Samaritan walks up and instead helps the man onto his pack
animal and takes the man to an inn, where he pays a handsome amount
for the innkeeper to watch after the man and nurse him to health.
Jesus says then, “Which of these is your neighbor?” (or something
to that tune, it's midnight, I’m not going to bother checking the
exact wording on the seventh most famous story in the Bible)
Now,
I would imagine that in this hypothetical world Christ conjured, the
Samaritan in question was regarded strangely by
his fellows. “Why would you help them?”
they would ask. For, Israelites and Samaritans were not friends at
the time. The Israelites, if memory serves me right, considered the
Samaritans to be unwashed barbarians, and Samaritans understandably
did not enjoy the comparison. The priest and pharisee, they can be
forgiven, can they not? For, to have helped the dying man would mean
days or ritual cleansing of the unclean blood from their contact with
the man.
Of
course, today we regard the Samaritan with praise, and I would say
that is what Christ is hoping for. The
Samaritan broke down the them.
He put them
on his pack animal, took them
to the inn, cleaned them
with
his own hands, and paid for them
to
be looked after handsomely. The parallel I draw is that this them
is the same them
as
the refugee is today. Israel had a problem with poverty, with war,
with sickness, just as we do today. Samaria probably did as well. But
the Samaritan saw a present need (there's a man bleeding out here)
above and beyond the constant need (there are members of my community
that need assistance) and fulfilled it. This was Christ's answer to,
“Who is my neighbor?”
Back
to the refugee. A man in the Middle East can no longer be considered
too far removed from our own culture. You read this on a monitor made
in Taiwan, with a plastic or metal frame made in China, likely
sitting on a furniture item (or within sight of a furniture item)
made in Poland or France, driving a car from a manufacturer based in
Japan, which takes oil from the UAE and SA, thinking about your
British friend and her Turkish husband. We are all connected.
So
what do we do? We cannot say, “I would take the serviceman in and
leave the refugee to die,” neither can you allow the refugee in and
leave the serviceman to die. Certainly there must be an error in this
assumption, for in this hypothetical we wish nobody to die. Perhaps
we could take them both in? One would have the guest bedroom, the
other can take the couch. But which would take which? Would they take
turns? Such lack of stability would be harsh on them (consider that
in this global hypothetical, the bedroom is in Texas and the couch is
in Alabama. Quite a bit of movement!), and I wouldn't ask that of
them. Perhaps the homeowner could take the couch, but then the
uprooting of the home would be severely taxing on the homeowner, and
this person would be less able to care for the serviceman and
refugee.
This
post gives no answer to the above hypothetical, it is only an
exercise in thought. On to my suggestion:
expand your us.
If you have your circle of family, expand it. Find extra room for
more people in your heart. We are all kept to a certain level of us.
Come consider us
to be the nuclear family, others the extended. Us
can mean to you, your friend circle, your local municipality, your
state, your culture. I try to consider every person I meet one of us.
It
is difficult, and I fail – I see a person who looks Asian, or a
person who looks Middle Eastern, and I initially jump to the thought
they are
different.
It is only when the conscious enters that I see we carry the same
skeleton, the same heartbeat, the same human foibles, and soften
again. It is a subtle racism that I identify and struggle with. In
years to come I hope I have no such inconsistencies with my handling
of strangers.
In
short, the more people your consider inside of your us
circle, the more compassion you have for the whole of humanity. The
whole of humanity needs more us.
Consider
helping a serviceman in need through veterans charities, and
giving
to refugee assistance in the brutal Summer of horrors blazing through
the Middle East. There is the opportunity to introduce yourself to a
complete stranger as a Samaritan, and become that stranger's us.
