Sometimes I read a novel, a fictional creative work, that rattles me more than reality, and that makes me feel ashamed. Why must I follow eight fictional characters long enough to care for them, to know them, and be concerned for them before I can wake up and be terrified, outraged, heartbroken for living people truly caught in that world that seemed so surreal?
Today, I lounged in my cool house, whined about pollen, played with my dogs, goofed around with my brother, and read a book. In the book, teen missionaries—each caught in their own disillusionment—barely survive a riot in an Indonesian village only to struggle through the wilderness to eventual safety. The disconnect still shakes me; how I can sit on a comfortable bed in my suburban home and type on a laptop I didn’t need about violence that is not stuck in fiction.
How easy it is to forget. I’m sure I will do it well, probably before this day ends. My life has been privileged. Any hardship I might have imagined into my life is laughable, a blessing in itself when I consider how so much of the rest of the world, within the borders of this country and beyond it, live each day of their lives. Sometimes I feel ashamed rather than grateful. Ashamed to have been born white, American, middle class, to loving parents with a genuine faith. Ashamed rather than blessed that I am free to leave my house with my hair and face uncovered, that I am free to learn and read, free to worship without fear, free to step from my house into a peaceful spring breeze. Instead of feeling blessed, I feel ashamed that I was not on one of those planes on September 11th or humming along to elevator music in the North Tower. Ashamed that I have unwittingly avoided the earthquake in Haiti, the violence in the Middle East, the massacre surrounding Uganda.
Certainly feeling guilt or shame is not a rational or even productive emotion. However, I think it’s closer to the mark than feeling “blessed.” If I can look upon the great tragedies in the world and feel only gratitude than I am spared, how motivated will I be to act, to abandon the refuge for which I am so thankful? No, no. Feeling blessed and thankful, though good, is not enough, is not much at all. Grateful is a start, and only a start.
If my only reaction to Good Friday is to feel “blessed that it wasn’t me” or “thankful for such a gift,” I have taken only the smallest step in the right direction. Certainly nothing I do, even with the most righteous of intentions, can allow me to “deserve” this gift. But that fact alone shouldn’t be enough to let me be content to live out my blessed life without concern for anyone else. Gratitude is a step, a spark that should spread into a consuming fire.
It is unmistakably easy to be moved to tears and trembling when one considers reality outside our American, or even Western, white picket fence. Or even consider the ugly truth of tragedy within it. It is much more difficult to swallow the lump in your throat, straighten your back, set your jaw, and do something.
I don’t know what I can do, or for whom, or even where to start. But I won’t let myself be content to feel blessed with my pleasant life when so many are denied it, and nor will I get stuck in the mire of shame and guilt of those blessings. Instead, I hope to walk the line between them, thankful for my blessings but ashamed to do nothing for those without them.
This is very inspiring, Hillary. Last semester, I had to write a response paper for a chapter in the textbook on environmentalism. Also mentioned in the chapter were world poverty and American materialism. My reaction was similar to yours. Certainly, we are blessed as Americans, and American "poverty" is still incredibly rich compared to much of the world, but being truly thankful for a blessing motivates to help those less fortunate.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think you seem to be more emotionally moved by fiction than real life? Do you think you could expound on that idea?
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