We grieve because we love.
I have just returned from my sixth trip volunteering in Calais to alleviate the suffering of the refugees there. The following contains my initial reflections on the experience.
We
all build narratives in order to make sense of the world and to
interact with others in it. But it is important to remember that the
narratives are superimposed, that they come from one particular vantage
point and that they have arbitrary starting and finishing points.
Take the refugee situation in Calais. Is it just about Calais? Not really, no. Every time there is an eviction in Paris or Brussels, a few days later there is a wave of new arrivals in Calais. Paris and Brussels have their own inbound streams of influence. And every time refugees are forcibly evicted
from Calais, as many were this week, the problem is simply exported to another French location. It's also about the UK because it is
our border. Historical decisions about where to put the border places
the problem in Calais. A change in the system and the problem would move
across the channel.
Does a story begin when the refugee leaves
home? Or is it when their friend is killed? Or perhaps when there was a
change of government that set a certain train of events in motion? Maybe
it began when an anonymous, desperate youth somewhere else in the world
joined an extremist organisation. Or maybe it was when an engineer in
the West added their expertise to building a bomb. Maybe it was when the
climate began changing because a community in poverty found they could
make money by chopping down their trees. Or maybe because a rich
Englishman two hundred years ago decided to make his fortune by
extracting precious metals from someone else's country. Maybe we should
blame the Calais locals who are fed up with the disruption on their
doorstep. Maybe we should blame the refugees themselves who didn't stop
and try a new life in Greece. Maybe we should blame the Greeks for not
welcoming them. Or the EU for not sorting out a continent-wide humane
response. Maybe we should blame the British tax payer for spending
millions upon eye-watering millions on steel fencing in France rather than adequately addressing the causes of
migration or the symptoms of trauma. Maybe we should blame the apathy
of the British public who are mostly oblivious to the degradation and
cruelty carried out in their name. Or maybe we should blame the
volunteer relief workers who arguably prolong the situation. Maybe we
should blame British law that doesn't allow legal entry to the UK for
asylum purposes.
The point is, there is no easy answer. The point is it can't be easily solved. The point is that there will always be suffering in the world and rarely is it entirely, if at all, deserved by the victim.
The question is "how should we respond?"
This week I was confronted with a striking phrase. We were discussing grief and loss and why, as humans, we suffer in this psychological way in addition to physical torment. The answer was "we grieve because we love."
We grieve because we love.
Grief is central to the human condition because love is first. To avoid grief, we must also shut ourselves off from love and attachment. It is as true of objects as much as relationships. The cost of avoiding loss is therefore too high because to cut ourselves off entirely from attachment is literally to diminish our own humanity. This is about us, not them. I had no direct contact with refugees this time - my first visit in which this is the case. But some of my friends did and they now have to carry the weight of distress at what they witnessed. Despite this price, knowing what they now know, they wouldn't go back in time and choose to avoid it.
We must resist the easy, cheap slogans peddled by the media and the politicians. They offer the mirage that we can be protected from the risk of our own emotional suffering if we allow ourselves to empathise with the dispossessed. They perpetuate the seductive idea that our own
problems are worsened by love of the unfortunate and that if we turn a blind eye to the suffering of the other, we can save ourselves. This is the great lie since time immemorial. We cannot grow happier as they grow ever more hungry and ever more frightened. We may grow materially richer, it's true. But at the cost of our very humanity. This week's Holocaust Memorial surely exposes the ultimate cost of the great lie.
So we must love extravagantly and endlessly even to our own cost. Love the refugee - they are simply ourselves with a different story. Every time we choose love, we choose humanity - for ourselves. And with it, unavoidably, we choose grief and pain and loss. The alternative is isolation and diminishment for us as well as the dispossessed.
I go to Calais to help those who are stranded there in squalor, hunger, fear and unimaginable misery. But I also go for me. There are an infinite number of possible versions of me. I go to Calais to avoid being the version of me who doesn't go. That isn't to say it's essential for others to go. The important words are "possible versions of me." My lifestyle and health make this possible for me but it isn't an option for everyone. Nevertheless, none of us can avoid choosing from our own unique set of possible responses. Whatever our own possibilities - let us always have the courage to choose love.
Take the refugee situation in Calais. Is it just about Calais? Not really, no. Every time there is an eviction in Paris or Brussels, a few days later there is a wave of new arrivals in Calais. Paris and Brussels have their own inbound streams of influence. And every time refugees are forcibly evicted
 |
| Calais by night |
The point is, there is no easy answer. The point is it can't be easily solved. The point is that there will always be suffering in the world and rarely is it entirely, if at all, deserved by the victim.
The question is "how should we respond?"
This week I was confronted with a striking phrase. We were discussing grief and loss and why, as humans, we suffer in this psychological way in addition to physical torment. The answer was "we grieve because we love."
We grieve because we love.
Grief is central to the human condition because love is first. To avoid grief, we must also shut ourselves off from love and attachment. It is as true of objects as much as relationships. The cost of avoiding loss is therefore too high because to cut ourselves off entirely from attachment is literally to diminish our own humanity. This is about us, not them. I had no direct contact with refugees this time - my first visit in which this is the case. But some of my friends did and they now have to carry the weight of distress at what they witnessed. Despite this price, knowing what they now know, they wouldn't go back in time and choose to avoid it.
We must resist the easy, cheap slogans peddled by the media and the politicians. They offer the mirage that we can be protected from the risk of our own emotional suffering if we allow ourselves to empathise with the dispossessed. They perpetuate the seductive idea that our own
problems are worsened by love of the unfortunate and that if we turn a blind eye to the suffering of the other, we can save ourselves. This is the great lie since time immemorial. We cannot grow happier as they grow ever more hungry and ever more frightened. We may grow materially richer, it's true. But at the cost of our very humanity. This week's Holocaust Memorial surely exposes the ultimate cost of the great lie.
So we must love extravagantly and endlessly even to our own cost. Love the refugee - they are simply ourselves with a different story. Every time we choose love, we choose humanity - for ourselves. And with it, unavoidably, we choose grief and pain and loss. The alternative is isolation and diminishment for us as well as the dispossessed.
I go to Calais to help those who are stranded there in squalor, hunger, fear and unimaginable misery. But I also go for me. There are an infinite number of possible versions of me. I go to Calais to avoid being the version of me who doesn't go. That isn't to say it's essential for others to go. The important words are "possible versions of me." My lifestyle and health make this possible for me but it isn't an option for everyone. Nevertheless, none of us can avoid choosing from our own unique set of possible responses. Whatever our own possibilities - let us always have the courage to choose love.
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