We Americans hate to see people suffer.
Let me rephrase that: We Americans hate to see Americans suffer.
Oh sure, we feel badly for people overseas and around the world who experience tragedy. We do feel genuine sadness when a natural disaster or an act of terror befalls a small town in the Middle East, or an urban center in China. We definitely shake our heads in disbelief, as we read a news story about sickness and death many time zones removed from our own, and might exhale a quick prayer or even text in a donation, if we’re really moved.
But for the most part, that is the extent of the energy we’ll expend on a community whose native language is not ours, or whose predominant religious affiliation is different from our own. We’ll feel bad, (we’ll feel good about ourselves for feeling bad), then we’ll move on with our day.
For most of us, there is a geographic component to our outrage in the face of suffering; the closer it is, the more we care.
This past week, our nation has rightly been riveted by the Boston Marathon bombings, which to date, have killed 3 and wounded hundreds more, many quite severely. The country en masse, has followed every millisecond of news coverage, tuned into every police scanner, and lapped up every blog and Op Ed piece generated. We’ve launched countless social media pages in solidarity with the city of Boston, to raise money for victims, and to proclaim our outrage at such a senseless act. We’ve seen hours of grainy eyewitness video, cried over every personal story of those innocents violated by senseless violence, and we’ve sang along in stadiums with thousands in cathartic, defiant joy.
Again, all completely valid and good and right and life-affirming. The problem is, we seem to reserve such massive outpourings of compassion and anguish, only for people within driving distance. As we move beyond our borders, our ability to sustain fervor, or to move to action, dissipates.
Now, this is not an America-only phenomenon, (but it is where I write this from, so that’s all I can use as home base for this observation). I’m sure we don’t have the market cornered on regional outrage, but we are a major player.
In 2001, I can remember in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the signs and bumper stickers and t-shirts that sprang up all over America, saying, “9/11: Never Forget”. A worthy aspiration and fitting tribute for the nearly 3,000 murdered that day, for sure.
Yet the more horrifying truth, is that on 9/11/2001, tens of thousands died of malnutrition, treatable diseases and exposure, (many of them, children).
And tens of thousands the next day…
And the next day…
And the next day…
And every day since.
Any yet there are few t-shirts, or stadium concerts or Facebook pages to grieve such continual loss and perpetual waste. There are few people saying, “2/5/2009: Never Forget”.
Part of that is simply our attention-span. It’s just easier to sustain a personal and national emotional response on a short-term, even-based evil. We want something that we can engage with immediately, and see change immediately, and so many of the global issues seem so massive, so daunting, and so slow-moving. They don’t have catchy names like hurricanes, and they aren’t as easy to get our hands around as a one-time terrorist attack.
But some of it, if we really come clean, is a heart issue. As much as it pains us to say, proximity determines passion.
Have you ever listened to a news report: “70 reported dead...” (You stop in your tracks and wait breathlessly) “… in Thailand.” (You exhale, strangely relieved). It happens.
In many ways, it’s natural to feel a kinship with those close-by; a feeling of solidarity with those within your borders. But the only way the true horrors in the world will be altered, is when we see a baby whose name we don’t know, living two thousand miles away, as intrinsically valuable as the one in our playroom. The only hope for a world with less pain and suffering, is that we become a people internally moved by all pain and suffering. And not just moved, but moved to move.
Let your heart expand beyond your borders, and let it flow with a compassion that is bigger than just your corner.
As you seek to be outraged at the hurting in this day, ditch the map and get a globe.
