A New Year's Revolution

A New Year’s revolution. I stand before you this evening as a hypocrite! For I have not yet begun to practice what I am about to preach. However, I do not intend to apologise for that – I believe what I have to say is much more important than any personal feelings –mine, or indeed, yours! ============================================

Let me tell you a little story. Very recently I went to dinner with some friends at a very posh restaurant. We had a wonderful evening. Good wine, good food and convivial company. We talked of Art and Culture and Music. We engaged in Philosophical discussions. We solved most of the world’s political problems. The evening was an epicure’s delight – an evening of elegance and eloquence. We parted company at the door of the restaurant and as I walked down the street I noticed a cowled figure, huddled on the ground clutching a plastic cup, begging. Just as I came abreast of this figure a car turned the corner, the figure looked up, and there, in the full glare of the car’s headlights I saw a young man, his small beard caked with dirt – his face streaked with blood from the open lesions which indicated an advance stage of AIDs. I felt fear, shock, horror and revulsion. And I hurried away quickly. Well, I didn’t sleep too well that night. The image of that poor unfortunate just would not leave me. I remembered an image from the National Gallery – an image of a bleeding and broken St. Sebastion. ============================================

I thought about life. I thought about how very lucky I have been in life and how very unlucky the unfortunate beggar had been. Poor, suffering, destitute – dying alone – hungry and miserable. And I had fled – whisked back to gentle and genteel suburbia by taxi. A ten mile journey from town – But a million miles from the grim reality I had witnessed earlier. ========================================

Lot’s of the things that Sister Stanislas Kennedy and Fr. Peter McFerry and Peter Lonergan have been saying for years – and that I have chosen to ignore – became starker. Ireland IS a two-tier society – the haves and the have nots. Those lucky enough to have a job and those who do not. Those who are educated and those who are not. Those who have private health care and those who do not. The gap is widening – in fact, it has become a yawning chasm. =====================================

You remember stories being told of America, say ten years ago, by people returning from a visit to New York city. Stories of people falling ill on the sidewalk and of passers-by just stepping over them. And we were appalled. How could that happen? How could these New Yorkers be so uncaring, so callous? If you were walking down O’Connell Street to-day and someone was lying at the side of the path would you or I stop? I doubt it! We’d be too scared, too frightened. Think of the other stories told of America – if you became ill and were brought to hospital, they wouldn’t treat you unless you had health insurance cover, or cash. If I need to go into hospital, it might take a few days to arrange, because I have VHI cover. Whereas, one of the people I work with had to wait seven and a half months to have a knee injury attended to, because he didn’t have private cover. We have become the same as America. ========================================

Look at the causes we aspire to – we step over the homeless lying in cardboard boxes, in order to sign petitions for such exotic issues - such designer causes as "compassion in world farming" Look at the massive and intense media coverage given to Joanne Woodword – did she drop the baby or did she not? Small forests of trees used for newsprint to debate every nuance of this farce. While we were preoccupied with this trivial soap opera, millions were/are dying of hunger in Korea, thousands are flooded out of their homes in Indonesia, And here in Ireland some of our itinerants live thirteen to a windowless caravan in mid-winter. We have caught up with America ! ============================================

I suspect that some explanation of it is an unconscious decision on our part to pass over the issues, to hope they go away. Years of mindless violence. Years of endless eyewitness reports- of crashes and carnage and catastrophes. Bloody and broken victims are regularly paraded through our living rooms. We have become numb to suffering. We have developed a feeling of unreality about it. After all, when John Wayne killed all those Indians, we knew it wasn’t real blood – we knew it was tomato juice. Now what we see IS real blood and we seem to have become immune to the fact. We are overwhelmed by it all. We have developed feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and inadequacy. The problems are so enormous, our options are so minuscule.======================================

In thinking about this issue I came across an early interview with Mother Theresa. She faced a mammoth task. A task which seemed totally impossible. She set out to help the sick and the destitute – millions of them – in one of the most impoverished cities in the world, Calcutta. When asked about how she had even begun to contemplate such a seemingly impossible task, she said it was very simple, she started dealing with her corner of the square. In other words, she didn’t try and tackle the problem head-on, she started doing what was within her ability. It’s the same idea that an impossibly long journey begins with the first step. ===================================

What has all this got to do with us?? My starting point is that Ireland has become a two-tier society. Increasing affluence has made us a far less caring people than we once were. We have lost a lot of our compassion. The sharp social divisions between the have’s and the have not’s is becoming wider. Indeed, it is the stuff that anarchy and revolution are made of!! Let’s make a New Year’s resolution. I want everyone here to make a firm commitment that they will do something for those less fortunate than themselves in the New Year – We could give money, We could join a charity, We could lobby our TDs We could write to the newspapers However, in my opinion, the most important thing we could do is to CHANGE OUR ATTITUDE. Of the ills I have described, our attitude is the thing that will make the most difference. It will reflect in how we deal with people, with how we think about and discuss issues, with how we influence those we work with and play with. When we discuss these issues with our friends and relatives we MUST try very hard to change their attitudes, We MUST encourage people to be concerned, We MUST try to re-kindle the consideration and the compassion and the neighbourliness that was once an intrinsic part of our Irish nature. We MUST return to being a caring society. Let’s turn a New Year’s Resolution into a New Year’s Revolution!!!