I hope you’ll excuse the long post. It’s part of my own effort to make sense of the bad news that has become far too familiar in past years.
We’re surrounded by tragedy yet we’re not sure what to do with it. It seems that whenever we turn on the TV or radio, pick up a newspaper or go online we’re confronted with another major loss of life yet that’s not often reflected in the blogosphere.
We all found it hard to come to terms with the devastation of the Boxing Day tsunami yet it certainly wasn’t the first time we’d been faced with such overwhelming destruction of life and property. Ongoing wars, terrorist attacks, widespread famine and so many other events seem to happen one after another and we feel less and less equipped to deal with the consequences. We put our hands in our pockets and send a few dollars but we still don’t feel as if we’ve done all we can. Why?
I wonder why we’re not blogging these events consistently. These are world shaking events yet we either ignore them or blog about the political environment that surrounds them. (Obviously that’s a sweeping statement and many bloggers are mentioning what’s happening and echoing the call for help. However, there is a large section of the blogosphere that is completely silent on these events.) Could it be that we’re all ‘tragedied out’?
Recently there has been the famine in Niger, bombings in London, the horror of Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Pakistan, the mudslides in Guatemala, the suicide bombers in Bali and on and on it goes. Thousands of lives have been lost; millions of lives have been changed forever. How do we cope with the endless barrage of tragedy?
In years past, these kind of events still happened, but they weren’t beamed live into our lounge rooms; there wasn’t the miles of footage being updated every second. Mums and dads weren’t armed with handycams capturing every disaster in living colour. We’re overloaded with events from around the globe.
In years past, we would hear about the big events overseas but the events that were more in our face were those that would happen locally. When events were happening locally we’d roll up our sleeves and do our bit but it’s hard to do our bit when events are happening half a world away.
I think we’re wired to want to help others and when we focus on those in our vicinity we can do that. My fear is that when we hear of so much that is happening around the world we start to harden our hearts and we stop getting involved, even with those situations we can impact.
Maybe we need to reassess our response to these overwhelming tragedies. We need to accept the fact that we can’t fix everything but we can play a part through donations and prayer. We also need to reconnect with local opportunities to bring healing. Making a meal for someone who has lost a loved one, being prepared to sit with someone who’s relationship has broken down, standing up for social justice issues in our community, dropping off a food hamper to the single mother who’s finding it hard to make ends meet; they’re all ways that we can start to reconnect with our God given desire to make a difference for someone else.
We can’t forget those people overseas and it is only right that we contribute to the rescue efforts in places like Pakistan and Niger but we also need to be getting involved in hands on ways with those things that are within our power to change. For some of us, we will be the ones heading overseas to be part of the hands on effort in those places, but for most of us, we need to reconnect with the heartbreaks and happenings in our local area.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
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Excellent and thoughtful post today.
Personally, I try to stay away from the heavier stuff on my blog. Whether it be local, or world events.
I’m with Indigo on this one, ROdney. I think that this is a beautifully written post, and I couldn’t agree with you more about people getting involved at a personal level.I’ve played benefits and other events for the relief effort… But on my blog, I stay away from the big issues. As a performer, I like to think that I make people forget for a little while about all the horrible tragedies that are taking place around us.
I wrote a post about this on 9-11 this year. Check it out if you have a minute.
http://www.denibonet.com/blog/?p=188
I’m going to spend some time checking out what you’ve been up to. Have a good weekend.
Deni
“In years past, these kind of events still happened, but they weren?t beamed live into our lounge rooms;”
Yes, but I cant remember another time in my life time when so many incredibly tragic things where happening so consistently in such a short period of time. Over 20, 000 souls have perished in Pakistan for goodness sakes. The other thing that gets to me is that if this had happened in the US it would be 24 hour coverage on all channels. We are living in very troubled times.
In my case, though, Katrina and Rita *were* personal. So one can’t always avoid the heavier stuff.
Bravo, Rodney!
Awesome post, Rodney. I will be the first to admit that I am “tragedied out”. It just never seems to end. You hit the nail on the head with the fact that technology and increased global awareness has led to us being more informed about these tragedies. And I think it certainly does make us feel like we can’t have much impact. I love your statement about accepting that we can’t fix everything. That’s hard for me. And we need to be more aware of what’s happening in our own neighborhoods and get involved there, on a personal level. Thanks for a touching post!
thanks for that Rodney. It really helped put things into perspective 🙂
I know that people have been saying it for years, but doesn’t really make you think that the time is soon. We are getting bombarded by these things, I know that I can’t help but think it.
I tend to stay away from the heavier stuff in my blog largely because there are so many other media outlets covering it. I don’t see any value in re-hashing something that the news channels have broadcast over and over again.
Consequently, I’ll only bring it up if I can offer an angle that everyone else seems to have missed.
That’s quite bizzare that I was thinking about this topic quite a bit recently too.
and reading Luke 21:10-28 (NLT) in my readings recently just sorta make me even more aware and brings lots into perspective.
I like what you said about realising that we cannot fix everything. so wish i could, but that would be a messiah complex.
thanks for the post.
This was a good set of thoughts and I appreciated your point of view. It is hard to watch these horrible events and keep a sense of balance.
I was taught “Charity begins at home.” and I’ve spent some time thinking about what that really means. It is practical, but it’s also an idea from a time when people didn’t think a lot about global citizenship or responsibility. Still, you have to carefully consider who and where you are before you can send pieces of yourself out into the world.
I believe that as long as we do our best to live responsibly and share our resources to the best of our ability, we have fulfilled the commission for charitable behavior. For some that will mean traveling to the site of tragedy, for others, it’s 2 quarters in an envelope or a check for 100K. Prayer is both powerful and meaningful as support to victims of tragedy, as it guides us in our decisions for action and appropriately asks for God’s mercy and intervention.
If thoughtful consideration of the victim’s suffering is behind your actions, how can anyone question the value?
One more thought on giving locally. Often local charities suffer terrible financial consequences when these astronomical events pull resources away from the community. If you feel led to give away from home, try to think of reserving a little for your normal causes. You can usually see the effectiveness of your gifts at home and this may be one of the reasons sending money to a distant cause seems so unsatisfying.
God bless and keep us all.
Paula
Excellent post, Rodney. I especially like your words regarding “local opportunities to bring healing.” Thanks!
Seems so much like prophecy fulfilled, doesn’t it?
Many more sorrows to come.
Our job then is to teach the Blessed Hope.