Brokenness, I am constantly reminded of it, and ever grateful for it. I was sitting in church yesterday and was reminded of the brokenness that exists all around us. It was missions Sunday, so the emphasis was placed on all the missions that we as a congregation support everyday through prayer, emails, and financially and I was all at once transported back in time to our visit to the Philippines. As we saw the faces of the children on the streets and in the government hospitals, it was akin to reliving the experience all over. I could almost smell the sickeningly-sweet smell of the garbage at the Baloc site, or feel the joyful gaze of the children for whom home is the streets or a slum dwelling. As I saw the images tears began to swell in my eyes, the subtle reminders of brokenness that we become anesthetized to.
I must admit that I have found the anesthetic to the realities of the world creeping in with every day that passes. I am anesthetized to my own experiences as a foreigner visiting such disparate circumstances from my own. Life is filled busyness. We have to provide for our families. We strive to be good parents and spouses. We’re making meals, and cleaning rooms, doing laundry, calming teary eyed loved ones in the middle of the night, helping friends, and finding somewhere in the midst of it the time to enjoy life which usually means watching something on some kind of screen because we’re too exhausted to do anything else. Slowly, the anesthetic of life here in the west makes its way into our hearts and minds.
While the gap in geographical distance between my situation and the situation of those I encountered in the Philippines is vast, it seems that every day I am apart from them the gap in my heart between my experiences there and here is ever widening. Then, with the flash of a photograph or small video clip the distancing gap is all at once condensed and I find those feelings that I thought were lost over time and am reminded of something I heard a psychologist on the radio say once: emotional pain, when recalled from memory, acts on our minds as though it were happening for the first time. The pain of sympathy is one that I hope never to forget. It is the antidote to the anesthetic of a culture steeped in materialism. So how do I teach my son the value of this personal revelation?
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