‽istis ponders, again, just a little of what life, death and the world is like and what we allow - somewhere, many-where in the everyday and always-there places… (weekending March 5th 2022)
Very nearly two years’ ago, on the cusp of the ‘first lockdown’ in the UK and as the virus spread and responses to the Covid-19 threat began to form and embed, ‽istis realised perhaps, possibly maybe a little, just a little of what life has been, and is like - for so many (https://pistisrec.blogspot.com/2020/03/)
As a taste of the uncertainty, the threat, the fear, the health, social and financial insecurity, the un-treatable acute illness and death of loved ones, the chronic illness and disability that many across the world experience day-in, day-out became the experience of so many more of us, ‽istis wondered then whether this could herald (or force) the start of something fundamental and radical:
a rebalancing;
more communitarian than individual;
more collaborative than competitive;
more ‘world first’ than ‘insert nation state name first’;
more all than some;
something more necessarily reparative, restorative, progressively redistributive, just, equitable, humanitarian, universal…?
Just imagine...
But perhaps we could not, enough...
For here we are with apparent incredulity at war on the Eastern edge of Europe weeping in and saturating the media; with disbelief that, reasonably close to home, neighbours with so much in common (people apparently rather like me not ‘others elsewhere') - could:
bomb
shoot
kill
allow and perpetrate all the other things that surely go with war and a breakdown of law and order:
the denial of rights;
death;
violence;
rape;
the abuse of vulnerable children, young people and adults;
the loss of homes and livelihoods;
the stress and trauma for those who are vulnerable and ill;
the disruption of care and treatment, of education and of all those social, community, cultural and artistic events that can nurture and elevate us;
the destruction, the wanton destruction;
the terrible fear and the loss of hope and faith;
and on and on...
Perhaps, possibly some of us, again in the words of the blog from two years’ ago, especially:
the more usually powerful,
the more usually exempt,
the more usually protected,
the more usually comfortable,
the more usually safe,
the more usually well
- are forced to experience (directly in real life; indirectly one or more steps removed, but still close enough) and maybe realise afresh a little of what life has been, and is like for so many somewhere, many-where, in the everyday and always-there places: conflict; the denial of rights; death; violence, rape; the abuse of vulnerable children, young people and adults; the loss or absence of homes and livelihoods; the stress and trauma for those who are vulnerable and ill; the disruption of care and treatment, of education and of all those social, community, cultural and artistic events that can nurture and elevate us; the destruction, the wanton destruction; the terrible fear and the loss of hope and faith; and on and on...
So perhaps, possibly, maybe this is what a little, or a lot of the world is just like?
Perhaps, possibly, maybe this is a little, or a lot of what we are like?
Yes perhaps even the ‘us’ of Europe? Indeed, possibly especially the ‘us’ of a majority/majoritised white, Christian Europe where, maybe, the veneer of civilisation has been worn utterly away by rapacious, ravaging and exploitational hegemonic imperialisms, by conflict and by wars (perhaps we can actually claim to be, literally, world-beating and world-gassing, and world-bombing, and world subjugating, and world exploiting), by what we have allowed or even by what we have wrought in perhaps at least the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries - and now, too, in the 21st century?
Shame on us that we, together even with the divine inspiration that many have claimed or at least paid lip-service to, have not imagined and re-imagined better and found a better way...
© Pistis
NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...
