Geographic Apathy

I have neglected to write on here for some time. My apologies.

Nonviolence has been drastically developed globally throughout the past century or so. Why is my generation not embracing it as its own, especially considering its cultivation in the American experience (Civil Rights Movement, conscientious objection, The founding of pluralistic Pennsylvania, hospitality movements, etc)?

Last semester I developed a practice of activism - both in deed and conversation. Ultimately, I failed. Maybe I didn't have faith. Maybe I lost hope. Maybe I needed more love. Whatever the reason, my friends and I were not able to significantly solidify the campus body into one of action.

Why? Very few give a damn and very few act on the damn that they do give. While some argue this postmodern age has enhanced the value of community and justice, I argue that this postmodern age is more of an ultramodern age, meaning an age where all that was crappy about modernism has coalesced into one mass. This is the "me" generation, despite claims of community. We have cell phones, the internet, and the Tea Party. Community is only good to the extent that it benefits the self (or at least the online image of the self).

Why has privatism/individualism skyrocketed? Because we can live in a perfect world with no problems.

Most people do not walk by the homeless, interact with a sick widow, or frequent a poorly-supported public school. There are problems out there, but it is possible (and preferable) to live in a place without problems (if you have a car). These places are not urban, and they are not very rural.

Now more than ever, it is achievable (and in many cases, expected,) to live solely for the benefit of oneself. Who wouldn't want to live in self-interest anyway? So whenever I try to hand a fellow student a piece of confrontational literature, they will not read it. Why would they? They don't have to. If they do read it, why would they act upon it? They don't have to. They have a bubble and they like it. Some days I would give anything to see the world through their eyes again. Ignorance is bliss, at least for a time.

Where we live determines the challenges we face. For some, that means no challenges. If a car breaks down, there is another one in the driveway. We must foresake the land of our fathers and displace ourselves among the exiled. We must become them. We must say with them, "Sweet the weight you bear."

I now have two options. I can do nothing or I can do what I can do. What I can't do is this: convince my peers through raising awareness, making dialogue, writing articles, collecting signatures, and praying/fasting that they must join in the often-silenced protest. None of those things, in themselves, are enough. However, I can certainly make myself poor as He made Himself poor. I can deprive myself as He was deprived. I can bring the light of suffering to their geographic world. I can make the refugee girl, the urban slum boy a physical sight. If that doesn't piss them off, nothing will.

Let all who have ears listen. We need not tarry with the others.