Alaska
Sometimes something is so overt that it’s covert. Take Alaska (unless you’re Russian, then don’t ‘take Alaska’, because that would have a whole different meaning entirely) for example. With its head and tail – or two tails, or arms, or whatever you call the peninsulas/archipelagos that stretch from the mainland – it is virtually as long as the contiguous states are in sheer mileage, or kilometers if you prefer the metric system used by everyone but the United States and Myanmar (but I am writing about the U.S. from the U.S., after all, so…). It is fascinating how something so gargantuan, with many untapped resources (and I assure you Al Gore and his compatriots wish to keep it that way) can lay dormant and docile for so long. It is seems removal by distance is a better induction for forgetfulness, which is a nice way to say ‘neglect’, than removal by time is. We easily ‘remember’ events from history; in fact, mostly ones we did not witness ourselves. However, we quickly forget places – and people in those places – that we have been to ourselves but are now removed from geographically. Distance has a way with amnesia; as they say, “Out of sight, out of mind” (although I still wonder who ‘they’ is). Aleppo would NOT be a prime example our time of this phenomenon, for in many ways, with all the live streaming footage and continuous media coverage (which is a nice way to say “raising social awareness”, which is a nice way to say “I don’t care enough to actually do something but I will tell everyone how mad I am about this thing”) many people feel harangued into the chaos that is Syria and it is not so “out of mind” as everyone thinks it is (about everyone else, of course). But take Haiti, who suffered mass devastation from an earthquake just six years ago, but very few remember, or even care to. Or, speaking of Myanmar, take it and cyclone Nargis that surmounted a death toll of over 138,000 lives in Myanmar and the surrounding countries in 2008…and we thought Katrina was bad – and it was! Geographical dislocation has a way of allowing us to forget. This, in some ways though, may not be a bad thing; in fact, it may be God’s mercy on us. For only He can hear all of the cries and screams on the whole earth at once and not go insane. We are allowed the mercy of hearing a few, and then the capacity to respond. Who are you being an extension of God’s mercy to today?
