One Human Body
Remember the moments in your life, which seem like a distant dream?
As I sit on the bus to the city, I flash back to an eight hour bus ride through the mountains of Nan, a moment of respite. Looking out over the foreign yet beautiful landscape, never knowing where I would head when I arrived.
Sitting in my cosy lecture room, I have a flashback of my friends working in the scorching heat, ploughing the land to pay for his education.
It feels like a distant dream, and my brain fathoms to process this dream was once a reality.
My trip to Thailand was a life altering experience. Filled with many realisations and learnings. I met people who worked endlessly day in and out, to get an education, to feed their families. To survive. Yet here I sat, with everything on my lap, but completely blinded to the fortune of my reality.
Where would I be without that experience? I can't fathom the thought. It's easy to live life here in our overabundant homes. Completely disconnected from the rest of the world. It's easy to get accustomed, to start comparing, to take things for granted. I feel myself slipping back.
A heightened awareness comes from my parent's own experiences.
My dad spent his first years of childhood of barefoot trekking. For my grandma, as a widowed mum with a dozen children, shoes were not a priority on the shopping list. At the prime age of twelve, my dad exchanged countless hours selling potato chips at local football games. Waking up at four in the morning for the daily work, study, work routine to help his mum and eleven brothers and sisters put the day's food not the table. Can you imagine the joy on his face when he finally spared a few dollars for his first ever pair of shoes!
{Picture of dad and grandma}
Or my mother, who couldn't afford to buy lunch for school. She would stay inside her classroom during lunchtimes, escaping reality in the pages of her favourite book, ignoring her growling stomach.
{Picture of mum with siblings}
And now, we are here. Our closet lined with shoes for every season. Our fridge filled with an array of food, so much we can't chose. Food delivered with a press of a button if we please.
I don't blame those who have never left their home, to not understand what we really have here. Even knowing my parent's stories, truth of the poverty gap didn't hit, it still hasn't. No matter how good the documentary, or speech, or TedTalk, it doesn't slap you out of your bubble. It's truly hard to.
Until you experience it so vividly that the reality fills your nostrils and burns your eyes. You can't press the off button to escape, because you are there. Breathing it. Living it.
So please, if you are reading this, go out and expand your world. Go out and serve a community that is in need. There are people in your very neighbourhood who you can help.
If you are a parent and have the chance, take your child out to see what else is out there. They will not learn with a Fortnight marathon, scoring a dozen tries in their weekend game, or going shopping for the latest fad. A sheltered trip to Europe won't do it either, surrounded by all the western comforts while the truth hides behind the golden doors. True learning, true compassion, true understanding comes from experience. Experience of real cultures, experience of serving another in need, stepping out onto the burning flames of reality.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, pp. 245–246)
“The injury of one shall be considered the injury of all; the comfort of each, the comfort of all; the honor of one, the honor of all.’
As I sit on the bus to the city, I flash back to an eight hour bus ride through the mountains of Nan, a moment of respite. Looking out over the foreign yet beautiful landscape, never knowing where I would head when I arrived.
Sitting in my cosy lecture room, I have a flashback of my friends working in the scorching heat, ploughing the land to pay for his education.
It feels like a distant dream, and my brain fathoms to process this dream was once a reality.
My trip to Thailand was a life altering experience. Filled with many realisations and learnings. I met people who worked endlessly day in and out, to get an education, to feed their families. To survive. Yet here I sat, with everything on my lap, but completely blinded to the fortune of my reality.
Where would I be without that experience? I can't fathom the thought. It's easy to live life here in our overabundant homes. Completely disconnected from the rest of the world. It's easy to get accustomed, to start comparing, to take things for granted. I feel myself slipping back.
A heightened awareness comes from my parent's own experiences.
My dad spent his first years of childhood of barefoot trekking. For my grandma, as a widowed mum with a dozen children, shoes were not a priority on the shopping list. At the prime age of twelve, my dad exchanged countless hours selling potato chips at local football games. Waking up at four in the morning for the daily work, study, work routine to help his mum and eleven brothers and sisters put the day's food not the table. Can you imagine the joy on his face when he finally spared a few dollars for his first ever pair of shoes!
{Picture of dad and grandma}
Or my mother, who couldn't afford to buy lunch for school. She would stay inside her classroom during lunchtimes, escaping reality in the pages of her favourite book, ignoring her growling stomach.
{Picture of mum with siblings}
And now, we are here. Our closet lined with shoes for every season. Our fridge filled with an array of food, so much we can't chose. Food delivered with a press of a button if we please.
I don't blame those who have never left their home, to not understand what we really have here. Even knowing my parent's stories, truth of the poverty gap didn't hit, it still hasn't. No matter how good the documentary, or speech, or TedTalk, it doesn't slap you out of your bubble. It's truly hard to.
Until you experience it so vividly that the reality fills your nostrils and burns your eyes. You can't press the off button to escape, because you are there. Breathing it. Living it.
If you are a parent and have the chance, take your child out to see what else is out there. They will not learn with a Fortnight marathon, scoring a dozen tries in their weekend game, or going shopping for the latest fad. A sheltered trip to Europe won't do it either, surrounded by all the western comforts while the truth hides behind the golden doors. True learning, true compassion, true understanding comes from experience. Experience of real cultures, experience of serving another in need, stepping out onto the burning flames of reality.
"This limitless universe is like the human body, all the members of which are connected and linked with one another with the greatest strength. How much the organs, the members and the parts of the body of man are intermingled and connected for mutual aid and help, and how much they influence one another! In the same way, the parts of this infinite universe have their members and elements connected with one another, and influence one another spiritually and materially"
“The injury of one shall be considered the injury of all; the comfort of each, the comfort of all; the honor of one, the honor of all.’
(“The Promulgation of Universal Peace”, p. 168)
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