I heard on the news, I think, that people cannot wrap their heads around big numbers. Like the deaths from COVID-19 are now (6 Oct)1,046,568 people globally, 210,716 in the United States and 153 in Nicaragua. In the U.S. the numbers could be a quarter higher with the number of deaths not attributed to but caused by the virus…and -I suspect – that is true worldwide.
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| Shutterstock licensed photo |
I remember a skit by the British comedian, Eddie Izzard, illustrating the same thing. It went something like this: “Kill one person and they lock you away. Kill three people and they put you in a padded room with a hole to look at you through. Kill millions they say, ‘Well done. You must get up very early in the morning. Kill. Kill. Kill. Breakfast. Kill. Kill. Kill. Lunch. Kill. Kill. Kill. Afternoon tea. Whenever do you have time to work out?’”
When thousands and millions of people die, we shrug our shoulders because we cannot imagine the extent of the horror. This happens as well with stealing and destruction of private property. We know a homeless guy who got six months in jail for stealing a package of ham and a loaf of bread; while on Wall Street the theft is in the millions breaking families apart and nothing happens.
People who deface government property or who burn stores during protests are call ‘terrorists’, while bombs drop destroying whole cities…and we - as a society - say, “Well done.”
We seem to be able to handle small atrocities and demand atonement and retribution; but the enormous ones, we blank out. Those are the faceless millions.
Unless you have been in Nicaragua and seen with your own eyes and remember, those who live in poverty…poor Nicaraguans are faceless to you. So, what do we do? We certainly can’t and probably shouldn’t fly around the world putting faces to the sufferers.
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| Rebecca Aist photo |
Becca was taking a group around Nueva Vida and someone said, “Well those houses don’t look so bad.” Becca responded with, “Oh! So, you can image your grandparents living in one?”
This is a good way to help us wrap our heads around the atrocities in order to move and to act.
When someone unknown to us dies of COVID-19, imagine that it is your parent dying or your spouse dying…that someone you adore died from this deadly virus. When your Target burns, think about your whole neighborhood including your apartment or home going up in flames. When you hear about the increase number of people going hungry, imagine your child or your sibling going hungry. When you hear about people living in squalor, imagine that it is your mother living in a leaky lean-to. Best of all, imagine that it is you, because it could be, and someday very well may be…life is never certain.
This putting faces on people struggling…faces that we know and love…can help us to move and act…and if it were our loved ones or us dying, being bombed, going hungry…we would want others to act to stop the horror.
-Kathleen
