On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words that they say
Which we won’t understand
Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away

Pink Floyd fans will recognize these lyrics from one of their most socially aware songs. There are sermons throughout this first stanza: Callousness, conscience, fear, misunderstanding, class.

Taken at it’s core, it’s a call to face head-on the injustice of suffering around us. It’s a theology of seeing one another without assumptions or guilt. The lyrics challenge us to extend mercy and solidarity instead of walling off, because not walling off makes us uncomfortable.

I think of such things when I spot folx at the Safeway curb, signs in hand asking for my surplus money. When to give, when not? What criteria am I using either way? Who’s “worthy” of my dollars? What to do when the person and I lock eyes?

The middle-class logic kicks in. I want to know what that person will do with my few bucks. I want them spent toward food, housing, clothing, kids or utilities. I want those folx to think like me, and be “practical” so they can get themselves off that curb for good.   

And then I realize (yet again) how I experience the world from my often unexamined Whiteness and class assumptions. I want to give, but only if I get to control what happens next: I want the people holding those signs to go inside the store and buy food.

I don’t pretend to know what’s right for anybody else when they creep up to the curb and there’s a person holding “Help” sign. There are a whole lot of other ways to make a difference in another’s life – and to keep it real, not everybody reading this blog has money to spare. 

My point here is privilege is a powerful thing – a wavy lens through which we make all kinds of judgements and decisions. The trick is to be kind with self and others as we unpack all that accumulated stuff. And not turn away.