Living amidst confusing realities....

There are few realties that we need to hold on as we go through this season.

One – the Present painful reality of this season - reality of pain and suffering in our midst. The pain of bereavement, and loss many families are going through. The post covid infection challenges, the ongoing disease related and larger impacts of the pandemic on lives of many.  Especially the families from lower socio economic strata, whose stories that hardly reach the media. Numbers should not numb us https://santhoshsramblings.blogspot.com/2021/05/let-not-numbers-numb.html, but should move us with compassion.

I am reminded of 2 quotes from Henry Nouwen

“Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not, 'How can we hide our wounds?' so we don't have to be embarrassed, but 'How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?' When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.”

“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

Two – the Promoted reality that the media and those behind the media wants us to believe. Let us not fall into the trap of what is promoted by powers that be to dull our pain. The selective data that is promoted, the slight manipulation of the way in which context is communicated so that the hearers will perceive differently. We live in a post truth world. Truth is on the ventilator awaiting a premature death and burial, especially in the political and other leadership circles. https://santhoshsramblings.blogspot.com/2019/05/causalities-of-current-context.html. 

I am reminded oof a reference from the Good Book. 

“Everyone’s after the dishonest dollar, (Or Rupee) little people and big people alike. Prophets and priests and everyone in between twist words and doctor truth. My people are broken—shattered! — and they put on Band-Aids, Saying, ‘It’s not so bad. You’ll be just fine.’ But things are not ‘just fine’! Do you suppose they are embarrassed over this outrage? No, they have no shame. They don’t even know how to blush.”

Let us learn to read beyond what is written, listen beyond what is heard and understand beyond what is told to us, recognizing that the truth is on the ventilator.

Three – the Promised future that leaders want us to hold on to. We humans have a short-term memory and especially an amnesia for recent events. Look back and try to remember, how we were promised great future less than a year back, the pain of lock down for those migrants, and the promises given to them, the demonetization and promises. Many such promise of the past, well meaning might be, but not realized! Let us realize that no human leader is in control today. Living in such times is difficult.

I am reminded of the quote from J.R.R. Tolkien in control “Frodo: I can't do this, Sam. Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness, and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam? Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo...and it's worth fighting for.”

The new day that will come will not come because of human leaders, but because there is a God who has promised that amidst all the rhetoric we are exposed to, that there will be day as the Good Book says - “Meanwhile the earth will fill up with awareness of God’s glory as the waters cover the sea.” That is the hope we hold on – a day when God will bring sun shine, and not the promised future from the leaders.

So how shall we live in the interim? Let us look around and celebrate the goodness of people. We are caught in the stories of the challenges and confusions of the context and people who use the context for their own personal and political gains than the common good of the communities!  https://santhoshsramblings.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-breaking-of-fellowship.html. 

There are many Sam’s and Frodo’s out there in the forefront trying to make a difference. Many health care workers in the forefront trying care in the midst of personal pain. There are others taking care of logistics, food, oxygen, supporting families and communites in need. 

Let us encourage and celebrate them. 

Let us as the Good book says “So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!”

Encourage each other to walk the walk of love, care compassion and hope….