Just one thing that has really resonated with me over the past couple of weeks is that I have been brought up to be very conscious of what's real and what isn't. When I was 12 or 13 my parents encouraged me to go on my Church's Christmas Drive: basically our Church takes 20 "Dear Santa" letters from the post office from particularly needy families and package them up a bunch of food to get them through the holiday season and bring them the presents they ask for in their "Dear Santa" letters and a cash gift to help them out.
This impacted me because of the contrast with my life, with what was familiar to me, because i was looking at what could have been a classmate of mine and watching him care for his brothers and sisters like the father they never had, all 9 of them (of course grandparents, an aunt, an orphaned friend) living in 3 small rooms (one of which was the kitchen) in an apartment building that had shootings outside regularly. And all he had asked for was a winter coat for his mother, shoes for his brothers and sisters. Hadn't even asked for something for himself. His name was Jesus and all his mother could say was "Gracias a Dio" and she hugged all of us. We sang Silent Night with them in Spanish and a few other carols. We said the Lord's Prayer together in Spanish. The mother couldn't stop crying. Jesus was a grown man in a 12 year old's body, coming up to his mother's shoulder, but holding her with the strength and solemnity of a husband holding his wife. We stayed and spoke for a few minutes with them. I went to talk to Jesus but didn't know what to say--had no idea. Finally, I mustered a smile and said "Merry Christmas." He smiled back. An embarrassed "Feliz Navidad" to his mother who mercilessly squeezed me again and I walked out.
I left wondering what I could have said, but realized that the kindness we had shown him had been enough for him. We came from very different worlds and it would be a long time before I would be able to negotiate that social rift.
They were so thankful for what I always looked at as food on the table--a very simple thing. I couldn't remember ever being cold in the winter because i didn't have the proper clothes. There were about 20 other families we visited that day--families ravaged by tough luck, sudden unemployment (just wanted a suit for the father to be able to interview), cancer, AIDS, death, imprisoned providers, on and on. Each story was more and more heartwrenching, each abode less and less livable. And yet of them all, I remember that boy caring for his family. And realized just how little I had ever had to worry about. How extremely fortunate I had been. And how little so much of the things around me meant--like video games and fancy clothes and electronic gizmos, all things I was surrounded by at home. When I came home, I was very quiet and my parents didn't ask why. My mother had traveled to South Africa on her way back to Greece from Australia where her parents had both worked 18 hour days for 12 years. My father had grown up in the Bronx, the son of a waiter. They both had their concepts of poverty and money. When they got married, my father lost 35 pounds and my mother ended up in the ER because they were malnourished. They knew why I was quiet. Before I went to sleep, I remember telling my parents "thank you."
I learned another lesson when I traveled in Egypt. Destitution. It made the Coney Island projects look like gated communities. No joke.
Which brings me back to the thought I have had about New York "cleaning itself up." We can't look at pain or death or sickness. We're scared of them, not inspired to help. After all, it would limit our productivity if we were sidetracked by the plight of our fellow human beings. The marginal benefit is too small considering the cost of our time when you crunch the numbers. But that's only because we accept the images on television as "abstract" (thanks for that word, Flipz) and attach a numerical value to the lives of people because it equally abstracts their pain, suffering and misfortune. Give a child money for school books, a parent the means to again care for his/her family, an ill patient the gift of life, a family the ability to celebrate life and love, a homeless person a roof--try to put a numerical value on that.
This has all made the mall and all that stuff disgust me. Hallmark holidays. American materialism. Not to say that I don't partake in these consumer orgies. I just feel disconnected from everyone around me. I don't hear the Christmas carols, the gleeful screams of children, the mothers herding their children together, the whirring sounds of grown men playing with electronics. It's as though we're all dead inside, these noises and the bustle disappear into the void. If you followed me with a camera and dubbed the video, you'd just hear the hollow echo of my footsteps. I wince to know that I'm one of the few people there who understands, at least a little, how lucky we are to be inconvenienced by holiday shopping. I wander through the mall without a smile, trying to think of the people I love that I'm shopping for, trying not to hate this place. And yet there's so much to be sad about. I can't step over a homeless man without promising myself, "one day, one day, I'll be able to pick that man/woman up and give him/her a new opportunity at life." And it makes me sick and upset at the same time because not even tomorrow is promised.
This impacted me because of the contrast with my life, with what was familiar to me, because i was looking at what could have been a classmate of mine and watching him care for his brothers and sisters like the father they never had, all 9 of them (of course grandparents, an aunt, an orphaned friend) living in 3 small rooms (one of which was the kitchen) in an apartment building that had shootings outside regularly. And all he had asked for was a winter coat for his mother, shoes for his brothers and sisters. Hadn't even asked for something for himself. His name was Jesus and all his mother could say was "Gracias a Dio" and she hugged all of us. We sang Silent Night with them in Spanish and a few other carols. We said the Lord's Prayer together in Spanish. The mother couldn't stop crying. Jesus was a grown man in a 12 year old's body, coming up to his mother's shoulder, but holding her with the strength and solemnity of a husband holding his wife. We stayed and spoke for a few minutes with them. I went to talk to Jesus but didn't know what to say--had no idea. Finally, I mustered a smile and said "Merry Christmas." He smiled back. An embarrassed "Feliz Navidad" to his mother who mercilessly squeezed me again and I walked out.
I left wondering what I could have said, but realized that the kindness we had shown him had been enough for him. We came from very different worlds and it would be a long time before I would be able to negotiate that social rift.
They were so thankful for what I always looked at as food on the table--a very simple thing. I couldn't remember ever being cold in the winter because i didn't have the proper clothes. There were about 20 other families we visited that day--families ravaged by tough luck, sudden unemployment (just wanted a suit for the father to be able to interview), cancer, AIDS, death, imprisoned providers, on and on. Each story was more and more heartwrenching, each abode less and less livable. And yet of them all, I remember that boy caring for his family. And realized just how little I had ever had to worry about. How extremely fortunate I had been. And how little so much of the things around me meant--like video games and fancy clothes and electronic gizmos, all things I was surrounded by at home. When I came home, I was very quiet and my parents didn't ask why. My mother had traveled to South Africa on her way back to Greece from Australia where her parents had both worked 18 hour days for 12 years. My father had grown up in the Bronx, the son of a waiter. They both had their concepts of poverty and money. When they got married, my father lost 35 pounds and my mother ended up in the ER because they were malnourished. They knew why I was quiet. Before I went to sleep, I remember telling my parents "thank you."
I learned another lesson when I traveled in Egypt. Destitution. It made the Coney Island projects look like gated communities. No joke.
Which brings me back to the thought I have had about New York "cleaning itself up." We can't look at pain or death or sickness. We're scared of them, not inspired to help. After all, it would limit our productivity if we were sidetracked by the plight of our fellow human beings. The marginal benefit is too small considering the cost of our time when you crunch the numbers. But that's only because we accept the images on television as "abstract" (thanks for that word, Flipz) and attach a numerical value to the lives of people because it equally abstracts their pain, suffering and misfortune. Give a child money for school books, a parent the means to again care for his/her family, an ill patient the gift of life, a family the ability to celebrate life and love, a homeless person a roof--try to put a numerical value on that.
This has all made the mall and all that stuff disgust me. Hallmark holidays. American materialism. Not to say that I don't partake in these consumer orgies. I just feel disconnected from everyone around me. I don't hear the Christmas carols, the gleeful screams of children, the mothers herding their children together, the whirring sounds of grown men playing with electronics. It's as though we're all dead inside, these noises and the bustle disappear into the void. If you followed me with a camera and dubbed the video, you'd just hear the hollow echo of my footsteps. I wince to know that I'm one of the few people there who understands, at least a little, how lucky we are to be inconvenienced by holiday shopping. I wander through the mall without a smile, trying to think of the people I love that I'm shopping for, trying not to hate this place. And yet there's so much to be sad about. I can't step over a homeless man without promising myself, "one day, one day, I'll be able to pick that man/woman up and give him/her a new opportunity at life." And it makes me sick and upset at the same time because not even tomorrow is promised.
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