Monday, June 5, 2017

Degrees of separation


How many degrees of separation between me and the starving, bloated child in South Sudan? How many degrees of separation between me and the Syrian refugee flailing helpless in the sea? How many degrees of separation between me and the young black girl lying shot and bleeding in the street?
Perhaps a better question is whether these degrees of separation are stepping stones to healing or stages of reaching out or whether they are just walls and closed doors.
Do all the tears and news reports and poems and laments really make any difference? Do they just assuage our guilt for our own complacency and personal inaction? 
Do prayers help at all? Opening the checkbook, maybe a little? How much courage can I muster to act? On which disaster? Are we just paddling upstream against the rushing waters of humanity forever broken.

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