Supplements

Commentary

By Liz Quirin

On Being Out of Touch

Have your children or younger relatives or friends ever accused you of being “out of touch” with reality? In their efforts to make sure I had all the latest information on all subjects of interest to them, my children used to tell me constantly to move into the current century. I’m sure they couldn’t have been suggesting I didn’t know what was going on in the real world — translate that “their world.”

Since they have left to set up housekeeping in other parts of the country, I was startled by a late-20-something adult who talked about that very same thing, only this time we were talking about people out of touch with the current world situation. Until about five years ago, this young woman said she thought nothing of spending $150.00 on a pair of jeans. Yikes! Times change, and luckily, this young woman doesn’t want expensive jeans in her closet anymore. In fact, she goes out of her way to do service work in her job and on her own time as well.

However, she said many people her age, and especially those whose salaries go into the stratosphere, don’t have a clue that people in this country and around the world are hungry, are losing, have lost their homes or never had one in the first place. It isn’t something that concerns them. Some, now on the other side of the fence, have discovered what it means to lose everything, starting with that stratospheric salary. I imagine some of them are surprised and perplexed, wondering how something like this could happen to them. They’re learning first hand what it means to look for help. Startled by their situations, some of them don’t know how to get help.

So, we have two examples of people “out of touch”: the “haves” and “have nots.” The haves won’t be getting in touch any time soon unless they jump right over into the other category with the have nots, which includes losing a job, a home, familiar neighborhood and maybe the friends that went along with it. What to do? It’s easier to educate the have nots because they are definitely paying attention to everything now. The haves continue to live in a world isolated from most of the rest of us.

How do we bring our young adults to earth? In the case of my 20-something friend, she said her husband keeps her grounded, but that’s only part of the answer. Her Catholic faith is playing a part in her life as well. It should be playing a major part in all our lives, helping us remember to reach out, especially these days when foreclosures haven’t stopped or slowed, when jobs continue to disappear. And when the recovery reaches down to the very neediest of people in our midst, we can’t forget what it was like to see or be people in need. Since we are people of faith, people of the Gospel and the living Body of Christ as well, we need to remind ourselves we must stay in touch with all of God’s people — the haves but most especially with the have nots.