Voices of the Oppressed - 4

How's my mental health today?

Is my continuing focus on the Voices of the Oppressed a sign of an obsession? I don't believe so. I'm still sifting through the ideas and thoughts stimulated in last weekend's dinner, movie and discussion event.

Our featured movie, The Help, packs a lot of issues, questions, and emotions. There is so much more to explore.

In our discussion, the racist, abusive attitudes and behaviours of the white women depicted in the movie came up. Their lives of leisure, bridge clubs, charity drives and benefit banquets, were made possible by their use of oppressed black women to raise their children and fulfill all other domestic chores related to running a family and household. So many of their attitudes and actions centered on silencing the voices of the oppressed. One person in our group suggested that their bullying, racist, abusive, demeaning behaviour was directly connected to their lack of purpose.
 

“The most depraved type of human being ... 

(is) the man without a purpose.”

― Ayn Rand

I'm not certain the lack of purpose was the underlying cause of the absence of compassion and inhumanity depicted in the film, but I know it can create a dangerous void within a person. At the very least it results in unfulfilled potential and a waste of God-given talents and gifts.

In The Help, it was the young white woman who had a clear vision of her goals for the future, her purpose, that provided the vehicle the oppressed used to make their voices heard.

God gives us each a purpose. It is up to us to discern what that may be and fulfill it.

Do I know what my God given purpose is? How can I be sure? If I know my purpose, am I working hard enough to fulfill it? Am I committed to seeking my purpose and fulfilling it?

I - and every other person in the world - must say: "I have my own special, peculiar destiny which no on else ever has had or ever will have. There exists for me a particular goal, a fulfillment which must be all my own - nobody else's."

-Thomas Merton