The 'have not's' relegated to shouldering the blame as "benefit scroungers", the refugee as a "terrorist", the homeless as merely lazy or scum. That's how they say they feel when the homeless beggar see the distaste or rebuff on the person's face as they walk by.
Sick and disabled people, or old people feel forgotten, feel abandoned even by their government, especially by their government as they experience cuts that savage any sense of 'self-respect', hope, self esteem or just a reason to live. When their experiences are 'air-brushed' out of societies consciousness. When mushrooms and trees become more important than a wheelchair.
3,000 people who are poor or homeless were fed at a giant Christmas Party in the RDS , Dublin, Ireland. a fourfold increase over 4 years. Many smaller community initiatives around Ireland also took place. Did participants feel loved and cared about or did they leave feeling "OK...so what happens the other 364days of the year?" Did they feel; " Yeh well, good on you, 'do-gooders', you'll leave me starving, cold, hungry, isolated the rest of the year".
Will we blame them if they are not grateful for the crumbs from the table? The tables of the have's.
I'm thinking of this as my yearly 'effort'; the 'St Crispin's Care Crib', a little venture I do every Christmas to raise food, clothing and toys for local families in need or groups in need was a great success. Am I just the same. My once a year tokenistic effort to ease the plight of so, so many?
In truth; sadly, partially, yes...but its not tokenistic. I hope. As a sick and disabled woman myself, I can do little to dent the depth of deprivation (physically, by getting more involved) in Ireland. But I do, daily campaign, protest, and raise the issues. I do daily 'represent' those of US, yes US, who live lives on the margins, in great emotional and psychological pain.
I too have had cause to feel rejection, unloved, uncared about. To the outsider, even to my family, this does not seem evident.
But when my reality of a rare, unknown about, neuro-degenerative, progressive disease and subsequent disability is not allowed to be spoken of at all, let alone to family members (whom I never much see the rest of the year), around my family Christmas Dinner table, this tells me only one thing....what I experience and know, and watch happening around me to others, is a taboo subject. Its the secret. the invisibleness of total rejection of who I am and what I suffer. An endemic cultural rejection played out in most families in Ireland.
Its taboo to ASK me how I am, it's Taboo to ask what happened when admitted to hospital in Newcastle, UK earlier this year, (they still don't know), it's taboo to ask how my degenerative disease is 'getting on' , what tests results are back? if I'm coping, what it means, have good doctors or ask; do I need anything.
It's taboo for me to say I had done a university course on the assessment of Posture, Seating & Wheelchairs" in Limerick University (because I was given a crap assessment and wheelchair by state HSE services) and that I was graduating at the end of January, gowns, mortar board, the lot! Well I did, but got quickly shot down by a family sibling when her son showed genuine interest in what I had done and why. "We won't talk about that" , said by my sibling matriarch of this family, just reminded me of my 'invisibleness within the fabric of my family.
Many might say; " but, Margaret ...not at Christmas! Not around the Christmas dinner table". Well, why NOT?
This takes me to what it means to Love and Care. What it REALLY means to 'Love and Care'...for me it means this...
Its when you ARE asked about your life, when people ARE interested in what happens you, good and bad. When people DO listen to what your real, daily experiences are like and actually DO care. Its when people DO genuinely remember I have (as well as my twin) a rare, progressive, neuro-muscular disease and that I don't have to pretend that life must be lived as if it didn't exist! Even on Christmas day...especially on Christmas day.
Dealing with this disease is life-consuming. There is almost no room for anything else. This is NOT a sob-sob scenario. This is trying to live in an environment and culture of austerity, with blame and silencing of the marginalised. The macro scenario at the RDS 3,000 feast and the micro scenario of the Family Christmas dinner should not 'photoshop' the picture of loss, grief, hardship, suffering out of our lived lives.
If those closest to me, my own family cannot be part of that struggle, is it worth sitting around a Christmas table, celebrating a CHRISTIAN feast, where we are expected to pretend life is other than this?
When meeting others who suffer, daily, relentlessly, even at the jouous times of feasting and coming together some time should be there for asking the 'Love and Care' questions.
How are you? What are you dealing with? Who is helping you? Do you have enough help? what can I do? These are the 'Love and Care' questions. But having said that, those questions are meaningless if you expect and hope I'll say; "oh life is OK, thanks" and that I move on to making YOU feel comfortable. If that's what you expect......your Love and Care question is not genuine.
These are the community and family questions that are far more important than that dinner plate or gathering. and the dialogue that results could just be the healing you need.
Yes we can enjoy the meal, the occasion, no doubt about it. But it can only be 'enjoyed' if we deeply feel the hosts really do know our lived reality.
Too often the 'love and care' is edited....out and what remain are experiences that eat your soul, because the REAL food 'Love and Care' is absent.
This is my reflection. Make sure when you meet suffering people, that you genuinely inquire about their suffering, otherwise its all superficial, all about pretence, all 'game-playing'. That is neither 'community' or 'family'.
Don't:
- avoid the painful questions
- don't contribute to the taboos of silencing, not wanting (really) to know
- hear the answers (even if painful)
- talk genuine 'Love and Care'
- Respond lovingly not with platitudes or rejection of the experiences
- give a moment of your time to help in some way
and if the suffering person always talks of suffering...maybe that's all their lives entail. Relief is NOT from ignoring but in engaging and making their lives more bearable.
This is the language of 'Love and Care'. The essence of Christmas.
But a human is NOT just for Christmas, a human is for life.
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