About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along ... (W.H. Auden)
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel
I was just reading "The Banality of Suffering" by Nathalie Khankan, writing from Ramallah, occupied Palestine, 7 December 2006, and was thus introduced to this painting and the poem Musee des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden, which then led me to a poem by William Carlos Williams, highlighting what is easy to miss in the lower right corner of the painting:
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
It is so easy to let death and suffering go unnoticed and unremarked as long as it remains impersonal. I have long admired those who don't allow the deaths and sufferings of others to remain unaddressed, but who reach out to strangers as well as friends and loved ones through a card, a care package, a written article, or a charitable organization, rather than helplessly and unhelpfully saying, "I am only one person. I can't make any difference" or "God will take care of it someday, I best not interfere."
As Witnesses we were trained to think that by distributing books and brochures with pretty pictures and promises we were doing something far more important and valuable than worldly charity work and political activism. But it seemed to me that this was all too easily used to mask a lack of caring or an excuse to not have to deal with misery on a deeper and more moving level.
As a kid, in quiet moments it seemed to me I could feel the pain and suffering of millions and hear their cries. But I was a JW kid, so even though I went out in field service all the time, went to school, did my homework, and still had some leftover time, energy, babysitting money, and youthful idealistic desire to visit the local nursing home with a group of girlfriends every week and join them in adopting a starving child, I wasn't allowed. I did get to write to government officials in Malawi, however. Isn't that special? *insertchurch lady voice* It really made me angry to find out years later that so much of the JW misery in Malawi could have been avoided if the FDS members weren't such callous Pharasaic b@st@rds.
I am no longer a JW but often have to ask myself even still, what prevents me from reaching out and doing what I can? however little that might be. Many of you here serve as a shining examples of helpfulness and caring, in ways great and small. So thank you for that. Whenever I am eating or opening a window or just walking dully along, may I never be so caught up in it that I don't notice what is happening to others, or, God forbid, pretend I didn't notice. Carry on!
~Merry
