Healing time

How can I help the poor? Should I even try? Don’t they need to learn to help themselves? And by labelling them as “poor” and even by using the words “them” and “they” doesn’t that make the distance between us greater?

Us. Now there’s a good word. It say’s, “Come over here, join, you belong here with me.” It also says, “Hey, all you darkness and despair out there, all you problems and obstacles, you better look out ‘cause look at us; we stick together and help each other out.”

Of course, when you’ve got a government telling you that the darkness is growing inside us, that the problems are amongst us, in our midst then how can we be anything but a fractured community? How can we expect to live out stories of peace when we are driven apart from each other? How can I love my neighbour if I will be persecuted for doing so?

Why do I feel subversive when I tell stories of refugees in this country? Why do I feel like I’m siding with terrorists when my heart goes out to the people of Iraq? Why when I offer food to a homeless person do I feel like I’m doing something counter-cultural?

I’m not sure if I like that word, “counter-cultural”. It sounds like you’re winding the clock back. Which I’m not. I’m just pausing. To contemplate. Ah, now there’s something we don’t do too often: stop and wait, till our thoughts still themselves, and wait, until in the emptiness, in the little piece of time when you’ve breathed out but you haven’t started breathing in yet, when your body and all the world around it pauses, for a cup of tea, on the back steps, in the shade, and no cars pass. Where has everyone gone? There’s no need to be afraid. Just wait. And soon enough the thought will come, “My God, I have been stupid.” And you smile, because it’s benign, it’s self-aware, self-accepting and from there you’re free. To move on, to act now in peace and love with strength and conviction and bring others along with you. And call me and you and them, us.