Reaching Out

 

 

 

Recently, I’ve had an increasing number of emails and texts that invite me to “reach out” if I would like more information. Businesses and other organizations claim to be reaching out and inviting others to reach out in return. I have an image of a great many arms that are wanting things.

Most dictionaries define “reaching out” as referring to an effort to help someone or to ask for help. It's an expression that was often used by churches or charitable organizations to encourage us to assist those in need. Now it just means making contact with someone. It simply means texting, phoning, emailing for whatever reason.

I guess that’s OK. Language changes, becomes inflated or dumbed down. Words disappear. There is, now, in fact, an emoji with an expressionless face and an extended, grasping hand that apparently means “reaching out.”

I remember feeling moved when someone asked me to reach out to a family in need. And feeling grateful when someone I didn’t know actually reached out to me because I was having a hard time. Just now a friend texted and invited me to visit her at her farm. She didn’t use the expression “reaching out,” she just did it. I felt it.

Words come and go. People no longer call, ask, request, inquire, implore, entreat, beg, write, or otherwise contact. They reach out. The supermarket, my insurance company, the car salesman, and a great many other people keep reaching out to me. And they invite me to reach out to them.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with this. But the image of so many hands and arms reaching out with no meaningful purpose concerns me.  

I hope we aren't losing the sense of what "reaching out" used to mean.

Where to start?

 

“We’ve gone straight from pandemic to apocalypse,” my niece says.

“When will the locusts arrive?” asks my daughter.

It’s not a joke. Last year the locusts swarmed in record numbers in parts of Africa and South Asia, destroying huge hectares of pasture land and causing increased food shortages in countries already challenged by Covid-19. People in those countries used to eat locusts which are high in protein and other nutrients but recently, despite these people desperately needing access to food, governments have advised them not to eat the locusts because the chemicals in the insecticides that are used to control the insects make them toxic.

These days, every crisis seems to occur within or alongside other crises. I live in a pretty comfortable part of the world, one that some people refer to as Lotus Land. But now, aside from the pandemic and the record-breaking heat from the “heat dome” which created temperatures 15 to 20 years above normal, we’re having to face the fact that where we live is far from idyllic for a great many people for many reasons.

What remains at the forefront of my thinking is the shameful treatment of the indigenous people on whose lands we live. But so much needs to be acknowledged and addressed, and it feels difficult within the current environment of concurrent crises. I can’t get my head around it.

So much all at once. Covid. Heat waves. Forest fires. The town of Lytton destroyed by fires. Statues torn down. Totem poles set alight alongside racist graffiti. An ocean on fire from pipeline damage in the Gulf of Mexico. Anti-Asian racism. Islamaphobic attacks. The Delta variant. The anti-vaxxers. Homelessness. Poverty.Anger. Hatred. Cynicism. Despair. 

Where does it end?

More important, where can we start to deal with all this? I was encouraged as I viewed the first of the 8-session webinar series called Bringing Our Children Home: https://reconciliationcanada.ca/bringing-our-children/  These webinars are well worth watching and the next one is on Tuesday, July 6^th. Candy Palmater, host of the Candy Show, moderates the discussions with a panel of experts including Reconciliation Canada Ambassador Chief Dr. Robert Joseph, and CEO Karen Joseph and others..

I found the wisdom, stories and thoughtful approaches of the speakers to be grounding and inspiring. For me, they offered a place from which to start.