loss of indifference

Indifference is worse than evil itself. (Wiesel, I think)

I have been indifferent about politics (among other things) for most of my life. I thought that all politicians were sleazy manipulative liars. I thought most of our laws are set up to advance capitalism, but these laws never affected the nitty-gritty of how I lived my life, so I didn’t care if they passed this law or that one. I began to feel embarrassed about this around the 2004 election; several of my friends had fiercely held convictions about which candidate was better, which issues mattered, etc. I was overwhelmed by how much I would have to learn to catch up, to participate in conversations, so I shut down. I didn’t vote. I didn’t care. I began to care when we invaded Iraq, and when the validity of using torture was actually debated. But still, I was mostly indifferent. I allowed opinionated friends to tug at my heartstrings here and there, but I avoided the myriad of talks given at seminary and the university that had anything to do with all of the ‘hot topics’ associated with politics—abortion, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war, healthcare, etc.
I became less indifferent when it came to ‘hot topics’ within the church when I was living in the U.K. a few years ago. A pastor there, recently returned from a mission trip to Sierra Leone, ended his sermon by saying, “We cannot continue to sit in our air-conditioned board rooms and debate the ordination of women and homosexuals, or when personhood begins, when little girls are having their genitals torn to ribbons and shreds.” (I’m paraphrasing). It still hurts me to remember those words, because I am so sensitive to images, it hurts to think of that being the reality for so many young girls. But the power of preaching is that it allows the disrupting voice of God to speak through carefully chosen words, even if those words are upsetting and painful. I will never forget those words, that image. And the truth of that challenge influences everything I do in regards to how I participate in the Church.
Despite this jolting from indifference in religio-social topics, my indifference to the world of politics remained. That is, until the first time I heard Sarah Palin speak. The more she spoke and the more I read about her and this election the more truly scared I became. She (and the more I observed John McCain in the debates) began to represent every politician who lived and fulfilled his or her duties like pitbulls with lipstick on—cutthroat and manipulative, smiling as he or she twisted the knife deeper.
As Cornell West spoke last night, so incredibly eloquently, about indifference, racism, politics, possibility for change, oppression, and love (among other things), I realized why I had stayed indifferent so long, and why the habit of indifference is still ingrained in me. West described addicts as those people who feel things so deeply that they can’t take it; they have to escape the sensitivity and intensity through other means. He said they were like “an orange without a peel”.

I have remained indifferent because the weight of pain and horror from the wounds we have inflicted on each other is too much. I have remained indifferent because I am afraid of the intensity of anger I would feel in the face of the systemic oppression and hatred that has been condoned and endorsed by our government, Church, and individuals (complicit or otherwise). I am afraid of that un-harnessed sadness, of that boundless anger. I am afraid of being so overwhelmed by those feelings that I’ll become paralyzed. And more afraid that I’ll be overwhelmed by those feelings and actually take a step forward in the hope of change, do something that gets me into trouble, the kind of trouble other prophets and protesters have gotten into. I also too easily write off hope as mere optimism. I forget that hope and love are weighty, concrete things, concepts that involve joy as well as disappointment, concepts that should be more than concepts (“Justice is when love becomes action”-West) but real decisions and actions that bear up the poor, the weak, the abused, the sick.
What would you do if every act of injustice irreparably broke your heart? What would you do if you found out that hope and love are living, breathing agents that stir you to enact justice wherever you could, as the spirit leads?
Would you preach? Would you vote? Would you get involved in an organization that spends its time knocking on the doors of powerful, influential people to get their attention, to educate them about the injustices that cannot continue, injustices that are happening right under their noses? Would you ask for forgiveness? Would you extend it?

What would you do? The time is now. The phrases “I have come to make a way in the wilderness…” and “I have come to proclaim release for the captive…” come to mind. The time is now.

a jolting word, i wish for you,
becca