By Carol Reimer. Carol is an alumnus of the University of Winnipeg, International Development and English Departments. Her perspective has been formed through her work with at-risk child care in Winnipeg, Canada, community urban farming in Havana, Cuba and debt-reduction programming in Cape Town, South Africa.
The truth is that my heart has been repeatedly broken for people around the world. Through study and travel I have learned about and seen injustice, oppression and unimaginable cruelty. I’ve wept and despaired and asked why. I’ve cast blame and sought solutions, and have solved nothing. The time for thinking and grieving is past.
Ezekiel was given a time of grief when God tells him, “Therefore groan, son of man! Groan before them with broken heart and bitter grief” (Ezekiel 21:6). It is important to allow ourselves time to grieve – to acknowledge people that have suffered and to share in their pain. We bind ourselves to each other when we share in, not only the joys and successes, but the heartache and pain. If we find ourselves completely at a loss to effect any change, at the very least we can stand in solidarity with our neighbours and grieve with them.
Grief also wounds our hearts to action. We cannot allow emotion to remain emotion. It must become active compassion. Tears are evidence of hearts touched, but if that’s as far as it goes, we remain useless to the people we weep for. Many of us have the luxury of deciding whether or not to stand and fight. We are not forced by circumstance to beat back injustice and protect the broken and vulnerable. Tears may come, but at the same time we need to pick up our weapons and prepare to do battle. We need to step out into action and work to make sure that there is no further cause to grieve.
In the past, heartbreak for what’s happened and what continues to happen around me has left me motionless, staring at the wall in my bedroom. Helpless and depressed. That feeling has festered and now I’m angry. I’m angry at what has been allowed to happen, at the audacity of evil people and the arrogance of lazy people. I’m angry at hearts that are callous and immobile. People that are self seeking and comfortable. I’m angry at myself for not doing more, but frustrated because I don’t know what to do.
I’m begging for the opportunity to stand against oppression and injustice. Ezekiel’s time of mourning gives way to action. In chapter 37, he is commanded to speak over the valley of dry bones. God brings him to the valley and Ezekiel walks back and forth among them. Bones long dead and beyond hope of life. Ezekiel does not answer with positive assurance when God asks if these bones can live. But when commanded, he speaks and the bones come to life. Not only do they come to life, but up rose “a vast army” (v 10).
Those of us who depend on God know that we do not act alone. We live by the power of the Holy Spirit and our actions are his arm moving across the earth. Working with God we have the power to do much more than we can imagine. We can move beyond our hopes. And we MUST move. We must act in obedience, “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke… to share [our] food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when [we] see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from [our] own flesh and blood” (Isaiah 58:6-7).
I’m admittedly quite ignorant about many things, but I know enough. I’ve cried tears over too many dead children, slaughtered villages, evil war lords and corrupt governments. Enough now. It may look hopeless. It DOES look hopeless, but we are called to something higher. We are called to act justly, love mercy and to defend the fatherless. It’s past time to do that.
If We Must Die
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Claude McKay (1919, 1922)
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