In the Name of Love

It was a rarity–a Sunday afternoon nap. Curled up in our play-room recliner, I snuggled beneath an afghan we had received as a wedding gift and was lulled to sleep by the repetitive motion of clothes being tossed around in the dryer. When I awoke, I realized I still had some precious time before the children would rouse and so I dashed out the door into the lightly falling snow, jumped into the van, and headed for Menards in order to purchase paint. (Now that my kitchen ceiling painting is complete, why not repaint our front door?) Alone, my fingers quickly displaced The Little Mermaid soundtrack, which has come to typify our recent ventures, and reveled in listening to my once constant companion: NPR.  The program at the time was recounting various individuals who were journeying from all over the country to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration. Five minutes into the drive, I learned about a group of southern men who had participated and risked their lives in perilous Freedom Rides throughout the South nearly forty years earlier. Self-designated then and now as foot soldiers, these men vowed to make their pilgrimage to the capital in order to be present at this historic event. As I pulled into the parking lot of my destination, I heard an African-American man recount his arrest for his fight against segregation, as well as the arrests of his eighteen-year-old daughter, who had sat at a lunch counter for "Whites only," and his sons who had been sentenced to juvenile detention because they were too young for prison. Another African-American woman depicted how she had been hosed down by members of the police because of her conviction that all people, no matter the color of their skin, should be guaranteed equal rights.

I am always deeply moved by stories like these–testimonies of ordinary men and women who refused to bow to the status quo but instead offered their individual lives for a cause greater than themselves. I would like to think that if I had been alive at the time I would have joined my African-American brothers and sisters in fighting to end a system of humiliation, oppression, and victimization. Likewise, I have often wondered how I would have responded if I had been living in Nazi controlled Europe and persons of Jewish descent had knocked on my door. Would I have offered them a place to hide in my home, or would I have turned them away, rationalizing that I could not jeopardize the lives of my husband, children, and parents. Honestly, I have doubts concerning my own courage and ability to transcend selfishness in order to sacrifice myself for love. 

In a speech delivered to President Clinton and members of Congress in April of 1999, Holocaust survivor and renowned author Elie Wiesel challenged his listeners to consider "The Perils of Indifference." His words are no less challenging today.

Indifference can be tempting–more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbours are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction. 

Martin Luther King Day. 19 January 2009