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Lorne Anderson [9 posts]A call to care
As we scroll through news feeds reporting about various diseases, natural disasters, daily tragedies and spurs of violence, we sometimes find ourselves feeling distant, even aloof. On certain issues we burn with indignation, but for many others, our hearts will ache just for a few fleeting seconds… and then we go on with life.
It is in these unfortunate yet inevitable moments that the saying ‘the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic’ rings true.
One person alone cannot handle all the world’s hurt, but perhaps it’s also because we can’t relate to a million lives. A million exceeds our imagination. What does a million even look like?
Our actions are deterred by the thought that it’s impossible and daunting for us to act on behalf of such a large number. For many, the notion that one life, your life, could affect thousands or even millions seems rather unrealistic.
However, history has been shaped by countless individuals who have done exactly that.What sets them apart? Perhaps it was the fact that in the midst of the impossible, they saw not a number, statistic or even multitude, but a face.
Maybe it was a friend, a family member, a religious leader/teaching or even their own reflection -- somewhere in the course of these people’s lives, they recognised the face behind the statistic. They set out, not to save the world, but simply to alleviate a burden or injustice creased upon the beating heart of that face.
In this light, Faiths Act to us isn’t necessarily a heroic, ‘save the world’ strategy. To us, it simply means that we’ve made a decision to see and embrace a face behind the other, to ‘un-blind’ ourselves, then act together in an effort to help or understand yet another face.
It’s a call to care, knowing that putting a face behind an issue on many occasions is all that is needed to spur action. In essence, it’s a self-challenge and bold statement that says we will stand together to realise achievable impossibles, one face at a time.
