Asylum-Seeker As Mirror: The Commonality of Psychic Pain, and Our Common Search for Home
Season 3, Episode 307, Oct 08, 2020, 08:42 AM
Estrangement and care: lifting the veil to reveal our common vulnerability, our common humanity.
As What In God’s Name partners with Project Home (NH) to raise funds for 4 families in southwest New Hampshire in the US asylum process, we wonder about the basic moral choice between accompaniment and abandonment.
Is the truth of the human condition so terrifying, that we can’t bear to look? Does the vulnerability of strangers and the relative weakness of foreigners raise some people’s defensiveness and disgust, because those without power are a mirror of the powerlessness that we don’t want to see in ourselves? In what ways are we all homeless? In what ways are we all in pain? How do these dynamics play out in society?
Our show pushes back against the unexamined, often unconscious ways that we frame public questions using political or economic modes of thinking. We aim to be part of a growing movement of people who are critical of the narrowness of political and economic categories, and who want to revive a vision of human flourishing that is grounded in the wisdoms of theological and moral philosophical tradition. We see these habits and ways of thinking as being pre-political, and foundational to a healthy and civil shared life in families, communities, economies, and polities.
In short, we want to foster conversations, develop habits, and create communities that are grounded in curiosity, going deep, and shining light.
Let us know your thoughts and reflections on our Facebook Page: @whatingods.
For the first two seasons of What In God’s Name, what would follow here in the show notes was a detailed guide through the show, with timecodes for particular parts of the conversation. We are going to eliminate those notes, as an experiment, and see if anyone notices. If you notice, and you liked the detailed show notes with timecodes, please send us an email at whatingods@ribeye-media.com. If enough people liked and used the detailed notes, we’ll bring them back.