“When Talk Is Cheap”
Bristol is about 1,800 miles from Haiti, as the crow flies. It’s an island, but as British poet and clergyman John Donne wrote in the early 1600’s, “No man is an island.” Haitians are our neighbors.
Just think how 3,000 Americans dying in the World Trade Center rocked us emotionally. Estimating 150,000 Haitians dead from the tragedy a few weeks ago, the earthquake cost approximately 50 times more people’s lives than 9/11.
Haiti is tiny. According to the CIA’s World Factbook online (www.cia.gov), the island’s total population is a little more than New York City. A similar proportion dead in the United States would be almost 5.1 million.
We struggle to wrap our minds around something this catastrophic. In a way that insulates us from the immediate shock of it. We can’t even find words to describe its impact. That’s inevitable, but we’re also vocabulary-challenged because we’ve carelessly thrown around some words to the point that they’ve become impotent when we really need them. In the interest of gaining perspective, I give you four:
Horrible: What is horror in real life? Here’s a suggestion: a mother helplessly listening to the dwindling cries of her five children trapped in the rubble and finally losing them all. Saying traffic over Six-Span is horrible, which I’m guilty of, reduces us to the “oh, darn, I broke a nail” level of superficiality.
Terrible: Same thing. What is terror in real life? What it must have felt like when buildings began to fall, whether in Haiti or New York City. My cold might make me cranky, but it’s not terrible.
Awesome: Awe has deep respect, even reverence to it. We can be in awe of God, of the Grand Canyon, of a newborn baby, of the power released when the plates of the earth shift. The Colts returning to the Super Bowl is not in the same league.
Compassion: Literally, compassion means to suffer with. Are we suffering with Haitians, or even local neighbors in need, or do we talk about compassion as lip service? Texting a $10 donation is not sacrificial to most people. This thought makes me squirm.
Here’s to perspective. Here’s to compassion.
Carol Willis is a freelance writer and editor. She specializes in written communications for businesses and nonprofits and other editorial projects. Carol also is the development director at Church Community Services.
