Healing Awareness
One of the highlights of my work is
that it allows me to meet people from all over the world right here in my
hometown. A few days a month I help out with an organization that provides
assistance to immigrants and refugees who are new to the St. Louis area. I try
not to pry or ask unnecessary questions, but often enough I become privy to
stories of great pain and hardship. Youths from Sudan and Somalia, women from
war-torn Congo, victims of Bhutanese and Bosnian ethnic cleansing, endangered
translators from Iraq and Afghanistan – I feel honored and privileged to be a
part of their lives. Hopefully I’m able to provide some measure of hope and
healing to them after having experienced far too much of the darkness of this
troubled and chaotic world.
The other day I was speaking with a
young man whose entire family still remains back in one of the cities most
devastated by the Syrian civil war. He fled there without many of the documents that
all of us here in the U.S. would just assume will follow us wherever it is we might go. Unfortunately, the simple act of mailing a letter home to request
them – to the extent that the postal service might actually succeed in getting
a letter through – is in and of itself a potentially life-threatening act. Can
you imagine what would happen to his family in Syria if the wrong person found
out that they were receiving correspondence from someone in the United States –
someone in the bosom of the great Satan?
In the course of our conversation,
this young man described having met someone here in the U.S. who was totally
unaware of the fact that there is a civil war going on in Syria this very
moment that is causing dislocations of people as haven’t been seen since World
War II. A combination of disbelief, exasperation, and pain crossed his face in
the short time it took to describe the interaction. Yes, I can imagine how
difficult it must be to realize that people you know and love are facing
possible annihilation back in your hometown even as others go about their lives
blissfully unaware.
We cause pain with our lack of
awareness. Thankfully, though, our awareness can facilitate healing. This is
not merely some squishy spiritual talk, it is reality as evidenced by numerous
studies related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), its onset, and its
mitigation. It turns out that when trauma is borne by the victim or victims
alone, without any social support or acknowledgment, there is an increased
likelihood that PTSD will result. Conversely, when trauma is acknowledged in a
supportive and non-judgmental way the risk of developing PTSD is diminished.
Compassion fatigue is all too
common these days. There is so much heartache in the world that it seems at times as though the only sane course of action is to focus our energy on shutting it
all out of our lives as best we can. We stop paying attention to the news. We
stop engaging in anything political. We simply focus on what’s going on with
our family, our friends, our job, and our spiritual community. Some even try to
reframe their purposeful lack of awareness in positive spiritual terms: “I’m changing the world by changing myself.” “I’m trying to be the peace that we need in the
world.” “I’m turning my energy toward that which I can actually change.” “I’m just
trying to focus on the joy that exists.” Sadly, such self-serving abandonment of
that which is in our sphere of influence only helps perpetuate the deep suffering
of the world.
Do you wonder what it’s like to be
an African-American from a scorned, forgotten, under-resourced, and underserved
part of town; to be kept in poverty with aggressive and disparate policing
practices that siphon away your money if you have it, or take away your freedom
if you don’t; to have your people treated as expendable if they should run
afoul of the law – not worthy of even calling for backup in order to keep their
blood from being spilled? Do you know what it’s like to live in such a world and
then have that reality absolutely and completely ignored by society at large?
What if each of us simply let our awareness of this reality be known?
Do you wonder what it’s like to be a
Palestinian from one of the ghettos created by the ever-expanding state of
Israel; to have your land and your freedom of movement taken from you; to have
whatever meager attempts at self-defense some of your people might feel
compelled to mount be met with overwhelming and indiscriminate death and
destruction; to have your very natural anger and frustration at the inequities
of your plight be used against you to justify the very treatment that is so abhorrent.
Can you imagine what it’s like to live in such a world where the reality of
your circumstances are so absolutely and completely ignored or denied by those
who have your fate in their hands – and those who would support them? What if
each of us simply let our awareness of this reality be known?
There are times when the causes of the suffering
of this world can appear so complex and intractable as to seem unworthy of all
but the most quixotic of efforts. And yet at other times it seems that if we
would only just bring the full power of our awareness to bear on them, these causes
would naturally give way to a much more healthy and just set of circumstances. I’m
sure I’ll be thinking often of the young Syrian man that I mentioned earlier. I’ll
be thinking of the pain on his face while contemplating that the plight of his
people might be unworthy of our attention. I’ll be thinking of the healing
power that our awareness can have.
Image
Man
carrying child after bombing in Aleppo, Syria via CTV News:
Copyright 2016 by Mark Robert Frank
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