Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

When I was 17 years old, I had this Norman Rockwell poster on the wall of my room at college. And at the time, I took its instruction to heart – treat other people as I wanted to be treated. View other humans with kindness and compassion and charity, especially those who were less fortunate than my university peers and me.

In hindsight, it was a remarkably socially privileged view of the world, but at the time, I didn’t have the life experience to interpret it any other way. And I’d argue that many people never do – they feel sorry for those whose lives don’t appear as comfortable or happy as theirs, they give to charities because it’s the right thing to do (and it is, don’t get me wrong), and they think “there but for the grace of God go I”.

Fast forward nearly 40 years to a recent conversion I was having with Small Man.

We were talking about the work being done by the folks at Fashion Revolution, and specifically about Lucy Siegle’s excellent but slightly traumatising book To Die For. I read him the information panel in the photo below…

And I said to my son, “It’s not just that this is a terrible thing and basically slavery. But what you have to understand is that that woman IS me. She wants exactly the same things in life as I do – a place to live, enough to eat, happiness and security for her children”.

It’s not until we truly understand that there is genuinely no difference between any of us, in fundamental human terms, that we’re able to feel real empathy rather than just sympathy. Whilst we continue to see a “them” and an “us”, there will always be suffering. In a world which is today so deeply divided on politics, religion, race and gender, understanding this feels more important than ever. ♥

. . . . .

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee

John Donne 1624