Ach, it bothers me when my patients' situations really grab me by the heart and I weep with them in their despair. Very unprofessional, and frankly, very self-indulgent - it's not exactly very helpful to you when your health care provider is as upset about your situation as you are.
However, my encounter with one of my families hit very hard with this recession has struck me today, more than the others that have come over the past few months; they have already lost their home, had to sell many of their appliances, have had creditors hounding them with phone calls at work and at home, and are considering personal bankruptcy. They are fearful that they will not be able to provide for their children and have them subsequently taken away from them. They've had to use a food bank for the first time in their lives, and dad cannot even bring himself to say the word "food bank". For various other reasons, they really are alone and afraid.
It's a world I, and the vast majority of my friends, barely ever touch. We don't understand want; sure, we may be short of cash, so we have to go to Tim's, rather than Starbucks, but we are not in danger of falling behind in the rent or the mortgage payments or in being unable to afford a landline, let alone a cell phone plan and internet access.
But this, this is a completely different beast. Despair and fear are not words I hear in my social circles, but they are being whispered under the doors of many other houses. I almost wish I had a paintbrush, and could paint the protective blood over their doorways, to keep hunger and poverty and despair from their homes...
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2 comments:
very moving imagery of the paint brush...and your eager heart to help those in suffering. But what is suffering or our sense of home? I just listened to a sermon on "HOME" this morning. Though we long for a future home that gives us a future, it's also important to understand that this present time is not necessary our home. Sometimes in our most lowly times of discontentment, it prompts us (and humanity) to seek what really gives us value, security and belonging. We come into this world and leave this world with nothing- I need to remember that! Anyways thanks for sharing!
You've a strong voice Julia. So use it with precision. We all feel powerlessness at times. Hell I know the feeling. In the end the only way to make change is to do something, keep doing it.
Ain't no magic bullets.
Got to band together, unite voices and fight for what's right. That's what FoodCycles has been about. Trust me, it's the flawed system that drives me to continue with the project even with the bureaucratic challenges we've faced.
Because the cause is just, the purpose is right and really I'm tired of sitting idly by.
The analogy to me is whether by watching the trigger be pulled and doing nothing of it (cognitive dissonance) we ourselves are guilty of the crime.
Now that makes me think I sound so cliche.
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