INDIFFERENCE
Indifference.
Yes-it is perhaps the most cunningly, seductive state. For a parent, who is indifferent to their children, it can cause unimaginable, emotional pain.
Simeon Gallagher, the Capuchin priest, identified indifferent parents as the most damaging to their children...Because the lives of the young people are almost meaningless...or at the very most, of little consequence. They choose to look the other way-so they will not see the child's anguish or pain. The child is nothing more than an abstraction, to be tolerated...but in small doses. As I listened to this priest talk about the sad assault against our youth, by the very adults who are responsible for their well being, I knew he spoke the truth...The same truth spoken by Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel.
Wiesel called indifference a strange and unnatural state that blurs the lines between light and dark, dusk and dawn, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. It is tempting...seducing someone to look the other way...to avoid seeing someone elses problems, because they would interfere with their own hopes and dreams. Wiesel claimed indifference is more dangerous than anger or hatred...because those emotions elicit a response, indifference elicits no response-absolutely nothing at all.
As he struggled to survive unspeakable horrors, day after day in the Nazi death camps, Wiesel could only hope in his heart-that outside the gates of his private hell, good citizens simply did not know of his plight...that the Nazi atrocities were a well guarded secret. He could only hope. But one day, his hopes would be dashed, as he would learn of the indifference of those powerful men and women, who knew, but who chose to look the other way. They chose to be indifferent.
Indifference is the breeding ground for man's inhumanity against man. For the inhuman way we treat the ones we are supposed to Love. The one's we abandon, who are now left-feeling forgotten. It is no wonder so many of our young people today-are in trouble--and feeling so troubled. It is no wonder so many of them-are themselves-becoming indifferent...to their parents, to their peers, to their responsibilities and yes-to the God of their understanding. It is no wonder there is still so much suffering...and so little compassion.
Indifference, may very well be, one of the greatest sins of all.
Yes-it is perhaps the most cunningly, seductive state. For a parent, who is indifferent to their children, it can cause unimaginable, emotional pain.
Simeon Gallagher, the Capuchin priest, identified indifferent parents as the most damaging to their children...Because the lives of the young people are almost meaningless...or at the very most, of little consequence. They choose to look the other way-so they will not see the child's anguish or pain. The child is nothing more than an abstraction, to be tolerated...but in small doses. As I listened to this priest talk about the sad assault against our youth, by the very adults who are responsible for their well being, I knew he spoke the truth...The same truth spoken by Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel.
Wiesel called indifference a strange and unnatural state that blurs the lines between light and dark, dusk and dawn, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. It is tempting...seducing someone to look the other way...to avoid seeing someone elses problems, because they would interfere with their own hopes and dreams. Wiesel claimed indifference is more dangerous than anger or hatred...because those emotions elicit a response, indifference elicits no response-absolutely nothing at all.
As he struggled to survive unspeakable horrors, day after day in the Nazi death camps, Wiesel could only hope in his heart-that outside the gates of his private hell, good citizens simply did not know of his plight...that the Nazi atrocities were a well guarded secret. He could only hope. But one day, his hopes would be dashed, as he would learn of the indifference of those powerful men and women, who knew, but who chose to look the other way. They chose to be indifferent.
Indifference is the breeding ground for man's inhumanity against man. For the inhuman way we treat the ones we are supposed to Love. The one's we abandon, who are now left-feeling forgotten. It is no wonder so many of our young people today-are in trouble--and feeling so troubled. It is no wonder so many of them-are themselves-becoming indifferent...to their parents, to their peers, to their responsibilities and yes-to the God of their understanding. It is no wonder there is still so much suffering...and so little compassion.
Indifference, may very well be, one of the greatest sins of all.
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