I am returning to my blog after a few days. What a crazy week this has been. Enough of that though and on to the topic for this particular post. 'Least' has been a recurring topic in a couple of my DMA classes this week. This topic began with the showing of the William Kentridge piece of the procession of down and out figures. After watching this piece, I found myself attaching the concept of 'least' with physical need.

This is a strong aspect of it of course. Those in need of food, clothing, shelter, and other such needs should not escape our attention. To be honest, in my personal experiences, the knowledge that such vast physical need exists in this world never really reached me on an emotional or any deeper level. Often I am presented with a passionate plea and pictures of the starving. When I go to church, when I go to chapels, when I attend various Christian events, on television, and just about anywhere else, I have found plenty of examples of those desiring financial help to lessen the physical destitution of others. Mostly these messages left my mind as quickly as they had come before me. Perhaps it was because of how distant those images were from my life. Perhaps it was the fact that these pleas were attempts to place guilt upon me when I knew that I done nothing wrong. Perhaps it was simply due to the fact that I have such limited funds at this point.

The idea of the least of us for me has come more in the sense of an individual basis. I have always been attracted to those individuals who always find themselves as outcasts, forgotten, and overlooked by the masses as well as those individuals who are either ignored or pitied, but never really understood. In fact, it has been only in the past few months that my scope of those who are in need has been widened to include the vast physical poverty which we can find anywhere in the world.

Diving into the depths of a single broken and isolated indivdual has seemed much more striking to me than a broad glimpse into vast physical destitution. Perhaps that is just my own unique spin on the same idea, but I will just work with what I feel called to address.