My wife has been cleaning people's houses and businesses for over five years now. It started when I lost my store manager position with Kmart during their bankruptcy period. That was back in 2003 when Kmart declared bankruptcy, took all their old stock to zero, reissued new stock and turned around and bought Sears. A lot of people lost everything they had invested in Kmart stock. Of course if you were one of the few who knew what was going on you got out quickly and saved your savings. Everything and everyone else was just collateral damage.
In America, and more and more in the global community, we are big on the phrase collateral damage. How do we measure it? How much collateral damage can we take and still save face? I wonder if saving face matters anymore? The consequences and the collateral damage from all kinds of indiscretion are shrinking.
Collateral damage means taking care of yours truly at the expense of others. To a large degree our economy is built on it. It is not restricted to government and big business. In the old movie, Zorba the Greek, as the lady lies dying in her bed her neighbors and friends are all skulking close by, eager to snatch one or more of her belongings after she passes away. More and more we no longer wait till the person passes away. What do they have that we want that we can get today.
If you say this isn't true you are in denial. I have a grandchild and it makes me nervous that the world she enters as an adult will be even harder, crueler, and indifferent to injustice than the one I will be leaving.
I suppose one of the nice things about the growing computer generated global community is that it is similar to shooting someone with a high powered rifle. You never see them face to face. You never get to know them. They are not a part of you. They are only a blip in a scope or an avatar in a video game. I was told there are even sex crimes in Second Life, a make believe internet world. Our morality does not keep pace with our technology. As life and war become more impersonal, it's only business, we become less and less accountable.
When war is hand to hand, face to face, you know you are killing someone just like you; someone who wants to love and wants to be loved back, someone who has a mother and father, someone who wants to be happy and enjoy life's best, someone who might have been your friend in different circumstances. As I understand it from the little my father, a WWII veteran told me, when you kill someone face to face they remain with you till the grave.
Many of those who scoff at the idea of the Bible being relevant for today are not aware that anything that suggests they might be accountable to a higher authority is just not unacceptable. We are quickly letting go of the idea we are accountable to God, God's word, or each other. Collateral damage is becoming less and less a factor, a minor consequence in the necessity of doing what we want, feeling what we want, getting what we want.
Just before Christmas Margaret called to make sure she has our address. She wanted to send Lily a Christmas Card. So what you might ask. Lily used to clean house for Margaret before Margaret's children were able to place her in a fabulous retirement home that she loves. Margaret was visiting family in Boston when she thought of Lily, the lady who used to clean her house; the lady who had become her friend, the lady she had not seen in a year.
A couple of days ago Lily got a call from Stan. He is one of her current clients. Stan is 90. He was on vacation visiting family in Oklahoma and he just wanted to call the lady who cleans his house and tell her how he much he appreciates her.
So what is the opposite of collateral damage? Margaret and Stan are the opposite of collateral damage; maybe they are called damage control. Whatever it is that is what Lily is experiencing right now. An unexpected call, a random act of kindness can do so much.
I am not smart enough to know whether or not all the social networking stuff will eventually help or hinder us in our need to connect with one another. Certainly if you want to be current you need to get on board. Me? I'm so grateful for friends who need and appreciate f2f. I was instructed that f2f means face to face.
An old group called the Eagles has their own answer for collateral damage. Their song is called Get Over It. Maybe, but I think people are the answer to collateral damage; the cause as well as the answer. I am grateful for the Margarets and the Stans, the people who take time out from their own busy lives to do damage control, to notice and say thank you; the people who got my wife's new year started so sweetly.
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