The United States has elected the wrong candidate. Vladimir Putin is out of control. People in Palestine and Lebanon are dying. The climate crisis is destroying species and communities.
We may read the headlines and feel utterly powerless and helpless. Or we may experience hardship in our own lives: redundancy, bereavement, illness, divorce, to name but a few.
What can I do? How can I change things? How can I protect myself and the people I love? Very often, when we perceive a threat, our first instinct is to DO something- build a higher wall, dig a deeper bunker, buy all the loo roll in the supermarket……
But often we are left feeling flummoxed. What can I do? And the answer seems to be “NOTHING”
There may well, in fact, be little or nothing that we can DO practically to change a situation either for ourselves or for others. But there is always something that we can BE.
Some years back, the phrase “don’t just do something, stand there” was coined- I am not sure by whom. It speaks of the importance of two things- first the importance of not simply indulging in knee jerk reaction to a threat or worry, and second, allowing ourselves time to appreciate the good things, the stable things, that remain in place despite any crisis we face.
This phrase was even introduced into, of all places, some A&E departments, with the practice of “deliberate clinical inertia” being advocated. It was found that, if medical staff were encouraged not to react immediately to a crisis, but to stop, assess, and take a moment, they could sometimes avoid making critical mistakes and leaping to easy conclusions.
“Just standing there” can allow us to fulfil important functions- it allows us, even if we cannot intervene to change the course of events, calmly to bear witness to what is going on around us, if necessary to record it and report it. It allows us to assess, carefully, what our best response might be.
Whatever we do witness, and whatever the situations in which we find ourselves, we can choose to BE kind, generous people who speak up for others. We can choose to be inclusive, even of people with whom we disagree. We can choose to be good listeners. We can choose to be forgiving and patient.
Jesus said to his friends “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
We may not feel that we can DO much, but we can choose to believe in a world of better possibilities, and, by believing in it, to begin to bring it about. As Gandhi said, we can “be the change we want to see in the world”. We can “take a stand” simply by our demeanour.
As we approach Christmas and New Year, I hope and pray that we won’t be feeling helpless or powerless, but that we will each resolve to take time, to “stand there”, steadily and kindly and generously wherever we find ourselves, to be a force for good in the world.
Every Blessing to you and yours this Christmas
Revd Kalantha
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