Stars of Unreported Stories

One could be forgiven to resorting to mythology and escapist literature in these trying times. But, by mere coincidence at first, my reading took me to realities far worse than our current coronavirus circumstances. For example:

To Erik Larson’s latest gem, The Splendid and the Vile, which conveys the destruction, death and other extreme hardships which the citizens of England endured during 1940 and 1941 under Nazi Germany’s bombing barrage.

Then to the best selling novel,  The Tattooist of Auschwitz, in which Heather Morris conveys the horrors of concentration camps that extinguished the dignity, hope and last breath of millions of Jews, Gypsies and dissidents from 1942 to 1945.

And then to Evicted, by Matthew Desmond, who reports of the less dramatic but nevertheless profound suffering of millions of Americans every year who lack housing security.

All of which puts our present predicament — a global pandemic — in  proper perspective: terribly bad for very many people but merely an annoying inconvenience for many of their neighbors. . .which takes me to a passage from The Tattooist: “To save one is to save the world.” 

In these times when people are suffering — not just from the global pandemic but from war, poverty and myriad injustices which existed before the pandemic and will persist after — problems seem so large that they overwhelm and paralyze people. The antidote could be to begin by helping just one: one person, or one family, or one non-profit or place of business. Everyday, media reports about people helping people in little ways; but the whole truth is that most acts of such kindness and compassion go unreported.

Our little neighborhoods and the world at large need us now more than ever to be the stars of these unreported stories.

JER