What must, and can we do?

…else, lose our humanity.
I think this is important. When we see someone in paint, ill, or injured, we’re called on to–a minimum–ask if we can help, and do so, if we can.
To turn away, diminishes who and what we are at the core of our being. This is way it matters, what and how we respond to the suffering we see everywhere around us. We are as no less diminished by turning away, and pretending to ignore the suffering we see happening on the other side of the world, than we would be if we did so to our own child, friend or parent, but it’s anything but clear what we can should do.
I’m old, and partly disabled. There’s not a wide range of choices within my limited abilities. This has been a source of anguish for me, as I am sure it true for many others. I’ve begun taking an hour or two to sit each afternoon with a sign at an intersection of the Penn and Drexel campuses. A small, insignificant thing–more gesture than action, but it has changed me–changed how I feel my place in this historical moment, and I’ve begun to notice more the response of those who pass by, of the few who stop to talk, or offer furtive–almost secret smiles, of recognition.
What any one us are able to do will be conditioned by individual circumstances, by who we are… but through the power of imagination, we can and mus responds. To remain silent, to turn away–is to wish up ourselves, our own death… the death of our humanity.