It has for long bothered me that some people we have journeyed with, made part of our lives, made big sacrifices for may turn full circle against us and often metamorphose into our greatest and acidic enemies. Some of our stories of benevolence, munificence and self-sacrifice end up like a dull piece of coursework; bland, anticlimactic and at worst, a real nightmare. We are pleasantly surprised! Psychologists often say that each problem between two parties is equally caused by both parties. True enough, both sides matter in the impasse of broken relationships between some of the children whose fees we have paid, some relatives whose bills we have constantly footed, colleagues we have bailed out financially, strangers we have housed for years and even nations whose debts we have forgiven or restructured and us.
It indeed conjures up a set of concentric circles around the issue of benevolence, kindness and how this should be or be done. This reminds me of one Dickensian description of Christmas, “as an occasion when the well-to-do use life’s loosers to improve their day and to feel good” – by giving presents and aid of course! This clearly indicates that benevolence can easily be misunderstood and conceived and thus, may require some deep reflection at all levels – personal, national and international.
The issue is that some people who cross the paths of our lives as our protegees, or subject of our charities and magnanimity come with their realities, a set of baggage that includes their brokenness, deprivation, sensitivities, anger, frustrations and such like whose import we often take no time to understand and appreciate.
The IMF and World Bank handed out dollars to poor nations and set conditionalities for servicing the debts with little done to get into the reality and karma of these failing states. They were often stunned when these nations insolently announced defection with a heavy miasma of detest and hate for the “kindness” of these esteemed organs. With the same manifold perplexities, our friends and us get entwined in the same wasp nests. This then begs the question of what we need to do to avoid such painful scenarios in situations where we have given “all to mean all”, in situations when we genuinely make sacrifices so that others may be better.
These are moments when we grit our teeth and take on extra jobs and endure all-nighters, risk migration to make some extra bucks so we can share, forego our leisure to help out, give the gift of our time to counsel, and we receive a cold shoulder after all. Where it pinches is that our kind hearts run faster and ahead of us and we take little time to bisect the game of pulling someone up, giving someone a push or a good head start. We are scourged instead and everything that follows resist a definitive explication.
There is no magic cursor pointing us to an easy answer to this issue of the passionate animosity one can receive from those we seem to help. What remains clear is that we must bring more than our heart to helping others, be it individuals, communities or nations. Thus, let us keep helping out each other even when things turn up different, for there is no rainbow without a storm.
By Sr. Najjuka Solome
