With no wish to diminish the
disastrous tragedy unfolding in Pakistan – how unsettling it is to see reports
of the English cricket team joyously beating the Pakistan cricket team whilst
floods threaten ever greater swathes of their country, as though the English
are gloating over their wounded Pakistanis opponents – but the 12 million you refer to (14
million according to yesterday’s Guardian) is the number of people effected by
the flooding rather than made homeless. That number has been estimated to be 2
million.
Meanwhile how do we remain ‘one holy
catholic people’ amidst the jabber of riotous discourse, argument and counter
argument? We are an excitable bunch. I often notice how impossible it is to
remain calm, still and quiet when whoever I am with is struggling to work out
how to do something; I can’t wait to get my hands/mind on the pesky problem. If
only the mote in my eye were not a damned great length of 4X4.
It seems to be accepted as a fact
of life that in our fabricating accounts of this thing we variously call life
or reality, we make use of fiction and non-fiction, we lie and steal,
occasionally attribute, more often unaware of what comes from where. After all
there are deadlines to be met, salaries to be earned, fees to be claimed. When
attacked we tend to defend ourselves, vaguely aware that our defence is
compounding our lies, but what else can we do? I listen to the Church or BP
defending themselves with finely honed PR skills and I groan in despair at
the inadequacy of the exercise. But I also have to accept that when my integrity is
under threat – and integrity and being must be closely related – I have to act
(internally or externally) to reintegrate, to repair the damage.
Words have a job to do and it is
probable that seeking truth is only part of that job.