Separated by a Glass Pane
In traffic signals there are people begging, children and women with young ones in their arms ‘claiming’ our compassion.
Of course, they lay a claim to our wallet. But underneath the appearances, the situation of their plight of having to lay claim to our wallets, in effect, makes a claim to our compassion, not just our charity.
We the fat and the rich of our land who drive in air conditioned cars have separated ourselves from them by a glass pane, the window of our cars. We use the transparent window or our cars to turn a blind eye to the plight of these people who are lost.
We somehow think that just because there is a separation of a glass pane between us and them, that their reality does not affect us. We then extend it one more step to assume that we have no obligation to them who find themselves in a reality quite different from our comfortable cozy cars.
How can the glass pane create so much separation? If the glass pane weren’t there we would rather prefer to shell out 10 bucks to get rid of them. Is the glass pane so powerful?
Sometimes I wonder how long it would take them to cause a crack in our glass panes. What would happen if they decide to resort to violence? They do not want to resort to this violence because they don’t not want to kill the ‘golden goose’, which is their livelihood.
But if we should just stretch our imagination a wee bit and realize that they might as well resort to break open our glass panes to give us an experience of the reality which we have shut ourselves from, then we would begin to have a different perspective of our own cozy realities.
Our lack of empathy would turn to a sense of insecurity and then at that point, we shall begin to understand the reality of their lives and the right sense of empathy would be restored in us.
If our glass panes are to be blamed for the separation, then the only solution is for it to be broken down. If the problem is our own hearts, the steely tissue that beats unceasingly till the end of our being, then solution is for that to be softened enough by the harsh realities of life to be sensitive enough to the plight of those whose lives are a part of the harsh realities.
The bottom line is that something has to be broken. The brokenness has to come from within, as in the Lutheran Reformation or it shall be forced from without, as in the French Revolution.
Of course, they lay a claim to our wallet. But underneath the appearances, the situation of their plight of having to lay claim to our wallets, in effect, makes a claim to our compassion, not just our charity.
We the fat and the rich of our land who drive in air conditioned cars have separated ourselves from them by a glass pane, the window of our cars. We use the transparent window or our cars to turn a blind eye to the plight of these people who are lost.
We somehow think that just because there is a separation of a glass pane between us and them, that their reality does not affect us. We then extend it one more step to assume that we have no obligation to them who find themselves in a reality quite different from our comfortable cozy cars.
How can the glass pane create so much separation? If the glass pane weren’t there we would rather prefer to shell out 10 bucks to get rid of them. Is the glass pane so powerful?
Sometimes I wonder how long it would take them to cause a crack in our glass panes. What would happen if they decide to resort to violence? They do not want to resort to this violence because they don’t not want to kill the ‘golden goose’, which is their livelihood.
But if we should just stretch our imagination a wee bit and realize that they might as well resort to break open our glass panes to give us an experience of the reality which we have shut ourselves from, then we would begin to have a different perspective of our own cozy realities.
Our lack of empathy would turn to a sense of insecurity and then at that point, we shall begin to understand the reality of their lives and the right sense of empathy would be restored in us.
If our glass panes are to be blamed for the separation, then the only solution is for it to be broken down. If the problem is our own hearts, the steely tissue that beats unceasingly till the end of our being, then solution is for that to be softened enough by the harsh realities of life to be sensitive enough to the plight of those whose lives are a part of the harsh realities.
The bottom line is that something has to be broken. The brokenness has to come from within, as in the Lutheran Reformation or it shall be forced from without, as in the French Revolution.