Priorities
It's a busy time in many households, but yesterday I had a few minutes to listen to Seán O'Rourke on Radio 1, and the piece stopped me in my tracks. I forgot that I was trying to cook something flavoursome for a very health conscious teen and work through some last minute.com stuff.
Listen to it:
to the couple who have meat at weekends and then it's always mince but during the week eat bread and fruit, and veg from their own garden because they simply don't have the money as they struggle to pay the mortgage to keep a roof over their heads;
the man who is being put through hell by his bank even though he has been up front and straightforward when he got in trouble with payments, attended the doctor who wrote a letter to 'the bank' - the response horrified me: he received a 7 day notice to vacate his home with his family from 'the bank'!
By calling it 'the bank', we neutralise the noun and that takes responsibility off real people. 'The bank' is not a real living breathing entity unless it's breathing down your neck. It is comprised of people - people with mortgages themselves, with families, with a myriad of personal problems. The customers are also real living people. By depersonalising, we continue with the 'man's cruelty to man' reality. Many express horror of the conflicts all around the world where people are killed by guns and other weapons, but this too is a conflict and it is a war being waged on more than the physical front, but on the mental too - by Irish people on Irish people.
Ultimately, those who make decisions in the banks affecting other people will have to face their own Judgement Day. I trust all will be able to do that with a clear conscience knowing they have done good in this world and harm to no-one....
In the meantime, I must make sure on a personal level that I don't judge until I have walked in my neighbour's footsteps. And my neighbour is.....
Until tomorrow
Avril
Listen to it:
to the couple who have meat at weekends and then it's always mince but during the week eat bread and fruit, and veg from their own garden because they simply don't have the money as they struggle to pay the mortgage to keep a roof over their heads;
the man who is being put through hell by his bank even though he has been up front and straightforward when he got in trouble with payments, attended the doctor who wrote a letter to 'the bank' - the response horrified me: he received a 7 day notice to vacate his home with his family from 'the bank'!
By calling it 'the bank', we neutralise the noun and that takes responsibility off real people. 'The bank' is not a real living breathing entity unless it's breathing down your neck. It is comprised of people - people with mortgages themselves, with families, with a myriad of personal problems. The customers are also real living people. By depersonalising, we continue with the 'man's cruelty to man' reality. Many express horror of the conflicts all around the world where people are killed by guns and other weapons, but this too is a conflict and it is a war being waged on more than the physical front, but on the mental too - by Irish people on Irish people.
Ultimately, those who make decisions in the banks affecting other people will have to face their own Judgement Day. I trust all will be able to do that with a clear conscience knowing they have done good in this world and harm to no-one....
In the meantime, I must make sure on a personal level that I don't judge until I have walked in my neighbour's footsteps. And my neighbour is.....
Until tomorrow
Avril
Comments
Post a Comment