The tide ebbs on out. The man finds he needs to walk ever further down beach these days to reach the softly lapping waves. The waves of compassion on the beach of his country’s national life. Where has all the compassion
He is pained. He is a compassionate person. Most people he knows are compassionate people. His community is too; there’s always folk willing to help someone out in a crisis. There seems to be no shortage of people seeking compassionate vocations, as nurses or whatever. He still gets a kind word at the supermarket checkout, even if there’s too often a shaken
fist from an angry driver on the way home. “How much did that woman in the village raise in her charity event recently? People are so generous” he thinks.
“But where has all the compassion gone in how things are run?” he wonders as he finally reaches the water’s edge. How can there even need to be a collection box for foodbanks in the local shop, when so many have oceans of wealth to spare?
“Why is everything now about profit rather than people?” he whispers to the waves. “Why would the owners of a water company care if our sea is stewing in sewage, when they’re corporate investors in a foreign land far away across that sea? Why am I called ‘economically inactive’ as if I’m just a machine, when I’m simply sick? Where has all the compassion gone?” he shouts to the wind.
He lets the warm waves run gently over his feet, his toes curling down into the soft sand. He relaxes. Compassion’s tide has ebbed for too long, he says to himself. It’s time for the tide to turn. It’s time for compassion to roll back up the corporate beach. He turns and begins his return walk, taking his time, splashing through the sparkling shallow pools left by the retreating tide. Yes, he thinks, it’s time for the tide to turn.
