weeping man (reverse threading, april 23, 2020):
…this global pandemic is just that – global- and is not discerning of your privilege (or lack thereof). it does not care. it can take anyone. and so we weep.
if there is a painting that depicts the face-holding grief and prayerful yearning for hope, it is this painting WEEPING MAN.
i wonder if he weeps for those who have fallen ill, those who have died. i wonder if he weeps for those who refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of this pandemic. i wonder if he weeps for those on the front lines, helping. i wonder if he weeps for those who have hidden in extravagant bunkers underground in far away countries. i wonder if he weeps for our isolation. i wonder if he weeps watching people intolerant of the isolation that will protect others, people who are selfishly and arrogantly protesting stay-at-home orders. i wonder if he weeps for the unrelenting non-discrimination of this contagion or if he weeps for the divisiveness of responsibility-taking, the it-doesn’t-affect-me attitude. i wonder if he weeps for the continuance of humanity. or if he weeps for the loss of humankind. or, if he weeps for the lack of humaneness. i wonder if he weeps because, in the middle of this trying and profound now, Next will come. i wonder if this painting is tomorrow’s tomorrow and he weeps with relief and hope.
today:
i am outraged.
where have we come since april 23 of that writing? we have been cautioned. we have been advised. we have had the benefit of science, the benefit of research, the benefit of funding, the heart-wrenching benefit of experience.
we have lost 150,000 people.
and we stand to lose many more.
the shifting quicksand of the pandemic threatens to overwhelm our nation, this country fraught with division and a dedication to entitlement. people argue for their “right” to do-what-they-want because, well, they want to. the “we-didn’t-get-to-do-this-so-we-get-to-do-that” mode of thinking. a warped sense of deservedness, i’ve heard it time and again. to hell with masks, with physical distancing. to hell with recommendations about gatherings. to hell with self-sacrifice. to hell with responsibility. to hell with leadership, with facts, with example-setting. to hell with it all. people-living-in-a-community-called-a-country are left-and-right touting their deserved-rights to live as they wish, to gather as they wish, to travel as they wish, to do what they wish. and the overwhelmingly whiny justification-among-justifications is because they didn’t get to do what they originally wished or planned or wanted. wow.
and the pandemic continues.
and the people-living-in-a-community-called-a-country live as individuals more dedicated to their own desires than to the actual good of the country. to hell with all those people dying. to hell with all those sick. to hell with the sanctity of each and every living human being. to hell with all those lasting repercussions of this disease. to hell with a spirit of helping. to hell with a spirit of community. whose idea was that anyway?
and so we continue to destroy ourselves – in so many arenas. and the weeping man watches from the sidelines as the divided people lash it out in the stadium, gladiators of precisely what?
read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY
visit WEEPING MAN on david’s gallery site
WEEPING MAN ©️ 2015 david robinson
reverse threading 