A MUCH-publicised television series began several weeks ago called V. This is an abbreviation for “Visitors” and involves the alien infiltration of earth. It is a premise that triggered my imagination – what perceptions would we create in the minds of such beings if they ever did decide to pay us a visit?
What insights would they gain as they stood back and observed the human race in its natural state?
How would they interpret the fact that a child dies from hunger and preventable disease every four seconds while billions of dollars are spent on weapons?
What would they conclude from the reality that over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank describes as “absolute poverty” while others discard excess tonnes of food and material goods on a daily basis?
They would have no choice but to presume that there is no concept of equality on the planet earth – that some people are of more value than others.
So is this true? As Christians, we would no doubt argue that it is not. We would claim that each person was created in the image and likeness of God and their value, therefore, cannot be distinguished from another.
How is it then that we can live with the injustice of resources?
We could argue that, as individuals, we are powerless to change anything. But that does not explain why we are able to go to bed at night and snuggle into our pillow without thought for the agony of a child who is taking his last desperate breath.
We are all familiar with the statistics of poverty and inequality that are listed above, but that, it seems, is the problem.
They have become nothing more than words on a page or pictures on a television screen. Somehow we have been able to emotionally detach ourselves from the suffering of others.
How has this happened? Have our hearts been calloused by familiarity, by a sense of fear and helplessness or, perhaps, by a choice not to step outside our own small worlds?
Most likely it is a combination of all of these, and in varying degrees for each of us. But I believe that the path we have travelled to reach such a place is common to all.
We begin our process of desensitisation by identifying a person by their circumstance and not by their true spiritual identity as children of God.
In this way we are able to subconsciously dehumanise them and keep ourselves emotionally separate – they become “the poor”, rather than “my brother or sister in Christ who is starving”.
We apply the same labelling to the choices and behaviours of others. People become “the drug addict”, “the prostitute” or “the mentally ill” and not “my brother or sister who is struggling with addiction or illness”.
We protect ourselves by creating a buffer zone within our minds and hearts and this alleviates us from the uncomfortable reality of true empathy.
We may have heard others say, or perhaps we have said it ourselves, “I cannot even allow myself to think of the suffering that that person must be experiencing”.
But this is not, I believe, God’s will for us.
He does not want us to exist in a state of self-preservation. He wants our hearts to be broken.
Pope Benedict XVI echoed this when he said that we must carry the pain of the world with us. It is only by doing this that we will allow ourselves to truly acknowledge the spiritual reality of our suffering brothers and sisters.
So that, rather than living as alien observers in our own world, we will choose to respond to others with the heart of our loving Creator.