ON WAVES AND UNDERTOWS
by Phyllis Palmer

    It was like watching one of those blockbuster disaster movies Americans love–only this was live, and these were real people being smashed by those giant  waves that wiped out whole villages in their path.  The undertow as these monster waves receded was every bit as powerful, dragging countless people out to their deaths in the depths of the ocean.  Thankfully, the world’s response to this massive human tragedy has been an unprecedented outpouring of compassion and a virtual “tsunami” of aid.
     “No man is an island” is a profound truth we seem to have to relearn every time we face a massive disaster, then conveniently forget in between when we return to the shared misperceptions which underlie our everyday conflicts and wars.  In times of catastrophe, the waves of compassion for the victims sweep us into an awareness of our true relationship as members of one human family.  Then later the undertow of “normality” pulls us back to our habitual ways of thinking of ourselves as separate, irreconcilably different, as potential enemies.  The strange perversity of our “normal” way of thinking does not see the deaths of 100,000+ Iraqis under our attack as a tragedy requiring a compassionate response.  Yet those people were just as innocent–and just as dead–as the tsunami victims!
    Rabbi Michael Lerner makes the point that we are constantly fed the myth that human nature is basically selfish, that most people are motivated by narrow self-interest, caring more about getting their own material needs satisfied than looking out for others beyond their own immediate family or group.  Our competitive society  discourages the development of empathy by conditioning us to view others as rivals over whom we must prove our superiority.  But in natural disasters, the massive suffering of our fellow human beings breaks through that veneer of cynicism, and releases our instinctive sense of unity and the generosity and compassion which is our true nature.  We discover yet again that every untimely death is a tragedy, a mother’s grief for her lost child is the same the world over, and nothing is ultimately more satisfying than caring for others.
    I wonder if the U.S. would face the same threat of terrorism if the hundreds of billions we spend killing people and trying to dominate the world, instead went to help alleviate suffering and poverty.  Suppose Bush were to withdraw most of our troops from Iraq and send them over to Asia to help rebuild the Tsunami-devastated villages -- how quickly the insurgency would evaporate!  Imagine the world’s response if we let our caring side take over and committed ourselves as a nation to ending the plague of hunger and disease that kills 29,000 children every day around the world!  We need only inspired and visionary leadership to call out the altruism which is latent in all of us in order to generate the political will to carry out such a magnificent program.
      It’s clear this challenge will not come from our leaders in the next four years, so it’s up to us ordinary caring people at the grassroots level to start shaking things up, making ripples which can become waves as we join with kindred souls around the world in challenging the powers that would drag us back.   Eventually the worldwide momentum for change could create a virtual tsunami of unleashed goodwill, sweeping our leaders along with us in spite of themselves.  The wave of the future!
    Even the tallest tidal wave is made of up tiny individual drops of water all moving together in unison toward a single goal.  If each of us committed to doing one thing to help, however small, and influenced one other person near us to join the effort–like the arm-raising wave sweeping the crowd at a game–imagine the earth-shaking difference we could make!