There are times in life when we are pulled down to earth so quickly that we barely realize what hit us. And the earthquake didn’t even hit us; it hit Haiti.
What I mean by “pulled down to earth” is that we lose our collective ego for a moment and realize that we are not, as was long hoped and believed, the center of the universe. We see the destruction that has happened and react each in our own way. Some stare and are simply bewildered, some revert to their auto-response i.e “that is soooo sad,” some cry, and I don’t know for sure but I get the feeling that some, after an initial fleeting moment of compassion, shrug it off and get on with their lives.
At some point we all get on with our lives, so will the Haitians, really. But it’s the mentality with which we resume our lives that reveals how a disaster of such proportion has truly affected us.
Last Friday night many channels on cable hosted a telethon, “Hope for Haiti Now,” which was organized by George Clooney and the Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean. Some of the world’s most well-known artists performed renditions of songs of sorrow and of hope while Hollywood’s biggest stars sat in rows answering phone calls and thanking donors for their generosity. Many of the celebrities in attendance are said to have donated well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars themselves.
The performances were beautiful and the time those people gave was generous, but what’s more is that reportedly the lines were so busy that people were having trouble getting through. While the official numbers will be released sometime this week (after this piece has gone to press), it’s rumored that over a hundred million dollars were raised that night for relief and rebuilding efforts.
I couldn’t help but give. As the screen filled up with the beautiful faces of young orphaned children, as well as the heroic efforts of everyday people digging with their bare hands through the rubble to get to loved ones and perfect strangers alike, a wave of mixed sadness and hope blanketed me, and I just broke down.
Here I was, sitting safely and comfortably on my couch after having enjoyed a beautiful home-cooked meal with my boyfriend and there they were, in such stark contrast; sitting on the bare ground, hungry, lonely, and in pain. We looked at one another and just cried. We cried for the contrast, for the children who will never be held in the arms of their mothers and fathers again, for the fragility and simultaneous tenacity of life, and we cried in humility. How can they be suffering so much while we just carry on?
It’s my belief that the time just following a natural disaster is when humanity comes the closest to existing in it’s highest self-realized state- that is, we live for a short period in egoless humility and gratitude for life, in generosity, and in compassion. I was wondering why we can’t seem hold onto that for longer than a few weeks at a time, when all of a sudden the answer came to me in the form of a simple selection tab online that reminded me that the problem is my own selfishness.
I gave to the World Food Program, which is currently delivering about 2 million meals a day in Haiti, but for whom hunger relief is not an emergency effort, but an everyday one. While making a contribution, the donor can designate which country they would like their money directed to off a list of over 80 countries where the program works. It was with that simple drop down tab that I was jolted into remembering how terribly unbalanced the availability of resources are in the world.
The feeling I had at that moment was one of utter embarrassment of how selfish I am. I realized that I have the luxury of actually debating to myself what I would like to eat for my next meal. This is the case for many of us here at UofO, is it not? We so often call ourselves “starving college students,” but we are not truly starving like many in the world are. In fact, most of us have much more than we actually need.
Even small children recognize this. A fresh batch of tears came to my eyes as I read a blog about the telethon the following morning that depicted how one man’s 5 year old daughter, after watching Shakira perform a rendition of “I’ll stand by you”, “quietly went to her room, gathered two dollars and ninety-eight cents from her piggybank, and asked me to call and send it to ‘the kids in Haiti who need it’.” What a magnanimous act she performed that night! She was not giving for any other reason than because it was needed elsewhere than in her own piggybank.
What a powerful message this little girl presented us. Through the simple act of giving what she could, she brought forth the best of what is inside her, and indeed, the best of what is inside each of us, the quiet beauty of authentic empathy that came straight from the heart.