Face It

A week ago a friend of mine passed away from lung cancer.  She had been a breast cancer survivor of seven years and was doing well.  She developed an annoying cough and was told it was allergies, then that it was flu, then bronchitis and then pneumonia ... and then terminal cancer.  She was brave, scared, worried about leaving a very precious grandson whom she was helping raise, and every emotion inbetween.  Most of all she was brave.  On a visit to her she told me that she felt as if she had been told she was going to take a journey but she did not need to pack and no one could tell her where she was going.  I had no words of comfort.  The truth of her words hung in the air as we looked at each other.  Neither of us spoke for a few moments.  There was nothing that could ease the reality of her words.

On the way back from Boston that week I was listening to a BBC report on the events in Syria.  A member of the opposition was reporting on a massacre.  His words were factual but his tone revealed the emotional toll on him of what he had witnessed.  As I listened I wondered how does anyone venture out into a world that has become so increbibly hostile that one may be killed at any moment.  How do you get out of bed, wash, put on clothes, eat, drink and make the decision to resume your activities in the face of the horrors that lie beyond your door? 

It may be courage, it may be survival mode, it may be because of a cause that one must hold fast to or one will spend the remainder of your life convinced that you were a coward but what ever the underlying reason it is remarkable that so many people do it each and every day.  These are not the concerns one has over the safety of traveling, or driving on a highway or walking through the woods alone.  These are the terrors that rise out of the very place where one lives.  Neighbours become enemies.  The members of the police and army are not there to protect you but will slaughter you and your loved ones in a moment if ordered to do so.  Any excuse for violence can be used to justify murdering a twelve year old boy working in the field with his father and uncles. 

I drove along Rt. 2 listening to further reports and asked myself how brave am I.  Would I offer to defend my neighbours if they were under attack but I was not?  Would I march with others if I thought that troops would open fire?  What would I do if asked to stand firm against tyranny and violence?  I would like to think that I would confront the savage killer and try to stop him but would I stop if he threatened me instead of my neighbour?  The honest answer is that I am not certain that I would. 

In the New York Times on Sunday Friedman wrote " Unless you get out of Facebook and into someone's face, you really have not acted."  Recent history has made many believe that by posting a comment, forwarding an e-mail, tweeting and generally putting fingers on a keyboard of some sort means that we have taken action.  As Friedman states in that case we really have not acted.  To act demands energy.  It asks for follow through.  It should hold us to the standard that we would ask of others if we were in the same situation.  If I can not do something for the other when she needs my help than I can not ask anything of her in my hour of need. 

I am certain that the Syrian government, and others, are very grateful for twitter and Facebook.  People post, they comment, they declare their outrage and then go out and have a coffee feeling that they have done something positive.  Revolutions do not happen when people stay in their rooms typing.  Revolutions happen because people step out into the street and are committed to change.  Each person who does that makes a mark in the world that can not be measured by 'hits' or 'followers' because it goes much deeper and is more lasting.

My thoughts turned to the aid workers, the UN peace keepers, the journalists and all those who quietly try to make a difference in the lives of those under threat.  Doctors, nurses, aids who go into places at great personal risk because they feel that they can make a difference.  Red Cross workers who do the same.  Time and again we hear of these peope being murdered yet the report closes and I would be hard pressed to tell you one single fact about each individual who lost their live.  We raise memorials to soldiers and to war but we do not raise many to the quiet workers for peace who risk their lives because they venture into the arenas where there is such great risk and human tragedy asking little other than that they be permittd to help those who are suffering.

It is not only in countries beyond our borders that there is a need for kindness, generosity of action, and a call for help.  Look behind the silk curtain of comfort and you will find the poor, the ill, the homeless, the abused and all the shades of tragedy and need that one reads about in the newspapers.  Americans are generous.  The average middle class American gives more to charities as a percentage of their income than many millionares whose donations are lauded.  Money is useful. It is good to donate but listening to the radio reports I considered how different it is to actually do something.  To step beyond the boundaries of my comfort zone and reach across to offer some one I do not know a place to sleep, a bowl of food in my house, a hand to hold when they are afraid. 

My friend Carole lived her life in such a way.  She found courage and kindness within herself. Ater her funeral so many people told personal stories of how she had been the hand that helped them that I realised she had been the hand that held the door open when others could not do so.  She had taken in stangers and helped them in their time of need.  She had been generous to others when she herself had little.  She had accomplished the bravery in living that it takes to be a good person.  When taught anger and mistrust as a child she refused to live her life that way.  Carole was the neighbour that we all wish we had and that we should become. 

For it is bravery, in all its forms, that we should ask of ourselves and celebrate in others where ever we find it.