“No matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands
will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal[1].”
Sarah Kay’s advice to her future daughter plays in my mind,
as the piercingly motionless stare of the 8 year old burns a hole in my chest.
It isn’t dust from the playground he is covered in, it is the rock dust from
the gold mines of Ghana. He has just come out of a 72 hour long unpaid shift in
the gold mine he is enslaved in for life. He is 8 years old, right about the
time I had discovered the wondrous world of Roald Dhal and SpongeBob and easy
bake ovens. The photo of this little boy was an image from a Ted Talk by Lisa
Kristine that I had stumbled upon. The blunt title had caught my eye during my
daily morning facebook scrawl- Photos that bear witness to modern slavery. (http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_kristine_glimpses_of_modern_day_slavery.html?quote=1828)
More photos and
statistics on the screen drill the hole deeper, and I feel my pounding heart
fall hard into it as the photographer tells her story of modern day slavery. 27
million people. Nigeria, Ghana, Nepal, India. Children on mountain tops with
their arms spread out, hoisting rocks thrice their size strapped on their back.
Women forced into the dingy florescent pit of prostitution. Entire families
trapped in unpaid labor. Hands dyed red and indigo with the stain of
generations of slavery. Human lives wasting away as you and I breathe.
The pain inside me turned into guilt, self-accusation, utter
disgust at myself. I think of all the suffering in this world, and how little I
do about it. Slavery, poverty, war, disease, pain. I’m stabbed by the reminder
of how ignorant, self-absorbed, and tiny, I,- most of us- am. A rather simple dialogue
from a haunting movie Thira echoes in my mind- We all have eyes, but we rarely
see things that don’t concern us.
The tornado of emotions from distress to agony to
self-revulsion settled down in a helpless sense of insignificance. There is
more suffering in this world than we could heal. No matter how much I try, my
hands will always be too small. Wasn’t I, afterall, a tiny insignificant speck
of dust?
“I have
never met a heavy heart that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside.[2]” This time Andrea
Gibson’s lines from a spoken-word poem is the voice in my head. From the
pit inside me rises a little dug out hope. My hands may be too small, but they
can still reach out. My voice may be too small, but it call still break glass
if I scream loud enough.
The profound wisdom of this 5 year
old says it all. This is the insignificant speck of dust screaming out to the
universe that I’m significant.
But maybe, that’s the
beginning. Maybe the insatiable pounding
of my heart, the hole in my chest is the beginning. The insignificant speck of dust
feels, the ISD thinks how it can make the world slightly better, the ISD hope,
the ISD believes. Because for every landmine that erupts, for every lost
childhood, every wasted life, somewhere a change is fighting its way out.
Somewhere a solider and her dog are reunited after the war. A baby is
discovering how to smile. A little boy is breaking off his chocolate bar for
his friend who doesn't have one. Someone is hugging a stranger who needs it.
Someone is crying for a little girl on the streets. Someone is raising a
pluck-card against war and hatred. Someone is trying to wipe away suffering.
Somewhere, an insignificant speck of dust is screaming she isn't too small to
make a difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment