Look to God and Live… Joyfully!

I am the queen of “out of sight, out of mind.” In recent years I’ve found myself focusing more and more on the things that are right in front of my face, requiring my attention right then, and forgetting all else. That means phone calls don’t get made (or returned), emails don’t get sent, chores don’t get done, etc. I feel happy if I’m a good neighbor to those I meet on the street as I’m going about my business, but for a variety of reasons my attention span largely stops there. Whoops! I might have big ideas on paper of doing good things, but unless the opportunity comes and slaps me in the face and demands my attention I easily shove it aside and allow it to essentially disappear into the dark void of nothingness.

This week I have thought about this weakness a lot. During the week I watched two virtual benefit concerts. The first one was the 75^th anniversary celebration for CARE, an amazing organization that fights poverty around the world and which now focuses primarily on helping women and children who are facing tragic situations associated with poverty, poor healthcare, and abuse. The history of this organization is amazing! The concert itself was moving and compelling as it shared individual stories of those who suffered and had been or were being helped. I cried throughout the concert. For those who are interested, that concert can still be watched at https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=573479150708203&ref=watch_permalink.

The second was a benefit concert to raise funds to erect a monument to the African American LDS pioneers, both free and enslaved, who gave so much to establish their religion in the Intermountain West. A widely acclaimed and award-winning movie, His Name is Green Flake, tells the story of one such man, a slave, who drove the leading wagon of the advance party of pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. The proposed monument would honor him and other African American pioneer saints and would be placed in the This is the Place state park in Salt Lake City. Their stories have long been overlooked whenever the history of the pioneers is told in what is a true travesty of historical storytelling. As I learned more about Green Flake during the two-hour program, and listened to the inspiring music and commentary, I found myself frequently in tears. Here is a link to watch that concert if you are interested: https://www.greenflakemovie.com/benefit-concert.

Both of these concerts left me thinking about the invisible people in society. Those whose stories are ignored and overlooked, those who struggle to survive, those who “lead lives of quiet desperation,” as Henry David Thoreau said, or those whose challenges are intense but fly under the radar within the larger community are all those whom I consider to be invisible.

Living in my particular community I don’t have the opportunity to be proximate with many people from minority populations. I find that sad. Because of a lack of proximity it can be easy for me to forget the pain that those in these demographics so frequently experience – both from their collective past and from their collective and individual present. I likewise don’t see the face of extreme poverty. I don’t ever actually witness the tragedy of hopelessness or the torment stemming from an inability to feed one’s family and provide the basic necessities. I don’t experience the long arm of gang violence. I don’t have experience with those fighting the all-encompassing power of addiction, or who deal with the long-term harsh realities stemming from abuse, or the pain of extreme mental illness.

The reality is that those who experience these problems tend to be Invisible to society.

I was talking to a dear friend this past week about the bullying her son had endured years ago and which was ignored by the adults around him. He was invisible. I was introduced to a young single mother with mental health issues who struggles to just survive. She often feels invisible. I talked to a widower who has felt invisible for nearly a decade in the church and neighborhood communities that he belongs to. I have heard stories from members of marginalized communities who feel invisible to those who should be there to support them. The isolated, the housebound, the person with disabilities, the mother struggling to juggle work and childcare can also all feel invisible to the world around them.

Unfortunately, too many public policies are made with a generic idea of people without looking at the individuals who actually make up the group being affected. To those in power, these people are invisible.

So, what can we do? I mean, I don’t have money to send to every good cause. I don’t have the time or energy to devote limitless hours to such causes either. What can I actually do?

Thinking about the things I’ve watched this week and the messages I feel the Holy Spirit has led me to understand from these experiences, I believe that I am supposed to make sure people don’t feel invisible. I need to stand up for those who struggle. I need to be an ally to the marginalized. I need to speak up for causes that bless people, even if those causes don’t naturally fit into my political worldview. I need to search for opportunities to tell people, “I see you. I see your struggles, your pains, your joys, your life. You are not invisible to me.”

I was recently on a Zoom call that brought this idea home to me. A friend was going to share some big and exciting news and had invited friends and family to participate in the announcement via conference call.  I was excited to be included and so I not only got on the call and tried to participate but I also helped others who couldn’t get on to do so. Not once was I acknowledged. When everyone else in attendance was welcomed by name, I was overlooked. When I spoke (and yes, I made sure I was unmuted) my comments went unrecognized. My “WooHoo” was obviously not heard. Even my texts assisting people struggling with the technical end of things went without acknowledgement. The whole event ended up being a very painful and isolating experience.

I’ve tried to extrapolate that single difficult event into a bigger picture. If I don’t enjoy being unseen and unheard, and that was from people that I absolutely positively know both know and love me, then how horrible must it be to feel that the world refuses to see or hear you?

This week has seen me renew my desire to fight for people who seemingly go through life feeling they have no allies. Everyone deserves justice and love and mercy and kindness and help. Everyone deserves to be heard and seen – as individuals. Christ died for each of us individually, and I believe that He expects to live for others individually as well. We are all part of the same human family, and we all belong to subsets within society, but ultimately we are all uniquely individual people who deserve to be seen as such.

I hope that I can remember that even though I have little in common with many, if not most, people, we have mortality and humanity in common. The song, We Are One states in its chorus:

I will make a stand
I will raise my voice
I will hold your hand
Cause We Are One
I will beat my drum
I have made my choice
We will overcome
Cause We Are One

Two powerful songs from the emotionally devastating (in an uplifting way) Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen touches this theme more poignantly than any other songs I know. Disappear is initially a duet between two teenagers who are invisible to their peers and then includes many of those same peers as attention is drawn to one of the boy’s pain (this is about the most inept and inane description, but you kinda have to see it to fully understand the full context). The other song, You Will Be Found, is the follow-up. These songs tug on (or more accurately, attack) my heartstrings every time I hear them. When we saw the show itself literally a week before the world shut down for the COVID pandemic a year ago, it seemed that everyone in the theater was bawling, for the feeling of invisibility and being forgotten is a theme that nearly everyone can relate to.

Disappear

Guys like you and me
We’re just the losers
Who keep waiting to be seen, right?
I mean no one seems to care
Or stops to notice that we’re there
So we get lost in the in between

But if you can somehow keep them thinking of me
And make me more than an abandoned memory
Well that means we matter too
It means someone will see that you are there

No one deserves to be forgotten
No one deserves to fade away
No one should come and go
And have no one know he was ever even here
No one deserves to disappear
To disappear
Disappear

It’s true
But even if you’ve always been that
Barely in the background kind of guy

You still matter

And even if you’re somebody who can’t escape the feeling
that the world’s past you by

You still matter

If you never get around to doing some remarkable thing
That doesn’t mean that you’re not worth remembering
Think of the people who need to know
They need to know
So you need to show them

I need to show them
That no one deserves to be forgotten
No one deserves to be forgotten
No one deserves to fade away, to fade away
No one should flicker out
Or have any doubt that it matters that they are here

No one deserves
No one deserves
To disappear, to disappear, disappear

When you’re falling in a forest and there’s nobody around
All you want is for somebody to find you
When you’re falling in a forest
And when you hit the ground
All you need is for somebody to find you

Cuz’ no one deserves to be forgotten
No one deserves to fade away
No one deserves to be forgotten
No one deserves to fade away
No one deserves to disappear
No one deserves to disappear

No one should flicker out or have any doubt
That it matters that they are here

No one deserves to disappear
To disappear
Disappear
No one deserves to disappear
Disappear
Disappear

To disappear, disappear
To disappear, disappear
To disappear, disappear
To disappear, disappear
Disappear

You Will Be Found

Have you ever felt like nobody was there?
Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere?
Have you ever felt like you could disappear?
Like you could fall, and no one would hear?

Well, let that lonely feeling wash away
Maybe there’s a reason to believe you’ll be okay
‘Cause when you don’t feel strong enough to stand
You can reach, reach out your hand

And oh, someone will coming running
And I know, they’ll take you home

Even when the dark comes crashing through
When you need a friend to carry you
And when you’re broken on the ground
You will be found
So let the sun come streaming in
‘Cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again
Lift your head and look around
You will be found
You will be found
You will be found
You will be found
You will be found

There’s a place where we don’t have to feel unknown
And every time that you call out
You’re a little less alone
If you only say the word
From across the silence your voice is heard.

Someone will come running.

Even when the dark comes crashing through
When you need a friend to carry you
When you’re broken on the ground
You will be found
So let the sun come streaming in
‘Cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again
If you only look around
You will be found (You will be found)
You will be found (You will be found)
You will be found

Out of the shadows
The morning is breaking
And all is new, all is new
It’s filling up the empty
And suddenly I see that
All is new, all is new

You are not alone
You are not alone
You are not alone
You are not alone
You are not alone (You are not alone)
You are not alone (You are not alone)
You are not
You are not alone (You are not alone)

Even when the dark comes crashin’ through
When you need someone to carry you
When you’re broken on the ground
You will be found!
So when the sun comes streaming in
‘Cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again
If you only look around
You will be found
You will be found
You will be found
You will be found!

You will be found

No one should ever be allowed to disappear, and no one should ever feel that because they are out of sight that they are out of mind. If anyone reading this feels invisible, I hope that they will reach out. Together we can truly help the invisible become visible. Together we can make sure that everyone can be found.