One day when we were in South Africa, the pastor we were traveling with, Pastor Victor, took us to a clinic where over 3,000 patients a month are seen. The staff is made up of 3 nurses and a doctor who comes about once a week. The place was jam packed with moms and infants. The nurse who heads up the clinic spoke to us about the plight of those mothers, their babies and the devastation of aids in South Africa. It was overwhelming. As we walked past all those beautiful faces on the way out, we experienced the somber realization that many of those mothers would not survive to raise those babies, they would die from HIV/Aids. We saw future orphans held in the arms of their ailing mothers.
We got in the van for a short silent ride to a nearby cemetery. There were countless graves with little metal markers crowded together at our feet. Pastor Victor explained to us that the graveyard was only about 8 months old but was nearly full and they would have to find a new place to bury people soon. This is a problem they deal with a lot in S. Africa. Approximately 35% of their population has been wiped out by aids. We were dumbfounded at the enormity of this loss. Victor had the students walk around the graves and look at the ages on the metal plates. We started having a conversation about what our students were feeling as they walked around. I explained to him that many of them had never experienced the loss of a loved one, that this was overwhelming to them. We spoke about how kids in S. Africa grow up. For most kids, they have never known living without thinking about dying. Victor said that if they were to go to the funeral for every family member who died, extended and immediate, they would constantly be going to funerals. He said that the people of S. Africa, the kids of S. Africa, are desensitized to death. My friend Tim and I were in shock as the conversation continued. My brain was reeling, my heart was aching as I thought about these beautiful children growing up and having to accept death as a part of life, sometimes even a daily part. Tim said that if the people of S. Africa are desensitized to death, then, we in America seem to be desensitized to life.
Desensitized. We drove away from the cemetery, some in tears, as we reflected on the loss and despair the children grow up with. One of our friends found a marker that was for a 9 year old child. Several of the markers were for young people. It just seemed so awful. We made a stop and as I waited in the van, I asked our driver, Lorato (his name means love), if he had been to that cemetery for a funeral. His answer was that he had been there several times. I asked how many people he had lost to aids and he told me there were too many to count. He said all of this with a very straight and matter of fact look on his face. Too much hurt to feel anymore I think. Desensitized to death.
Are we desensitized to life in America? If we are, what is at the root of it? I kept thinking about the incredible smiles of the orphans and kids we were spending time with everyday. They had nothing physically, in fact, many of them did not know when they would eat next. But, they had this joy! They had an indescribable attitude that life was worth living. It was infectious and disarming. They had a way of hugging us that would completely strip away our preconceived notions that they needed more to be filled up. It was embarrassing to think that we had imagined we were coming there to offer them something we thought they were missing. They knew what life was about. Perhaps living around death can do that. Maybe living without things and status had taught them to live in relationship, joy and passion. Is it our stuff that causes us to live life numb and without that kind of joy? Is it our worry and our pursuit of what we think makes us secure, or who will fulfill us, or what will sustain us that has desensitized us as a culture? I am sure it is much of that plus more. We are so blinded by what we have, what we want to have, and what we think will fulfill us that we are completely oblivious to what life is about. Life is about joy. Life is about smiling and loving. Life is about relationship and looking out for others. It seems so simple and yet I feel we are so far from living that way.
How do we change our culture? How do we affect it? I think the answer comes in living life with intention and purpose focused on living in peace, loving others, loving life, reaching out with joy, embracing people who don’t even know they need it. I think we start by asking ourselves some hard questions about our joy, our focus, our living. Those questions have been permeating my thoughts the past few days. I see the smiles in my memory, I feel those hugs, I hear that laughter and as the layers try to slowly creep up again to draw me back into my desensitization, I feel them peeled away at their root. I am a work in progress. We all are. We can do this. We can do it individually and as a community. It’s not hard. The answer is love. The key is joy beyond circumstances and wants. I am praying for a change and I am starting with the formerly desensitized man in the mirror.
