May I have your attention please? wayne centrone

Sitting in the Atlanta airport and waiting for a connecting flight, I was suddenly awakened from my semi-sleep, upright chair sleep by the overhead paging system blaring a message, “May I have your attention, please? An emergency has been identified in the building. Please await further instructions.” I have experienced this jarring announcement at ATL on more than one occasion, so my response was dispassionate. Sure, the beeping of the siren and flashing of the strobe flights were hard to ignore, but in all likelihood, I felt assured the “emergency” had little to do with me.

It did, however, get me thinking. Where are the sirens going off in our lives? We have become so numb to the call to action that we no longer consider them alarming. I felt this disconnect as I drove over the past week around Perú—through the streets of Lima, in the Sacred Valley, up into the high mountains of Huaraz, and along the desert coast to Ica. On multiple occasions, I witnessed “things” that were truly alarming. While driving in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods of the northern cone of Lima – a man with only one leg hopping on the shoulder of the road down a road tunnel, a half-naked young man with what appeared to be a fulminant psychosis wandering the streets of Huaraz, a woman and her child huddled together with an infant hiding in plain sight on the bus downtown streets of Cusco, a young boy washing car windows as cars screaming down the Pan-American Highway came to an abrupt stop while traversing through one of the many little towns that punctuate the Pan-Americana and slow the racing traffic with mountain-sized speed bumps. These are a few of the “emergencies” I witnessed on my seemingly uneventful drive.

I use the word emergencies in quotes in a tongue-in-cheek manner. We have become so conditioned to seeing tremendous human suffering that we no longer see the situations as emergencies. We need to pay more attention to the challenges and plight of others. The problem is that the call to action is only true for some. Plenty of people are working daily to respond to these emergencies and the many challenges facing communities. Yet, in many ways – whatever is happening, it is not enough. Sitting and waiting for further instructions is not enough; we need to act.

If we each took up the call to respond. If we each, in our unique, considerate way, connected with the emergencies in our lives and the communities around us, the world would be a very different place. We could change the narrative if we all saw it as our responsibility to respond to the alarms going off all around us. No longer would we be numb to the pulsing sirens and the flashing light; we would be engaged and connected – we would be in the lives of each other.

An accessible criticism of this call to action manifesto is: Okay, that is all good; get out and do something, but what? Be the change the world needs, but how? Just by connecting. The next time you are walking on a city sidewalk or driving on a rural road, stop . . . connect with what you see. Listen to the voice of compassion that is calling all of us. Yes, by all means – make sure the situation is safe for you, help another, and respond to an emergency should not put you into harm or make you another victim. It could be acknowledging the other person and their struggle by making eye contact or asking if they are okay. It could be offering financial or actionable support. It could be opening yourself up to see and feel the totality of pain and struggle.

May I have your attention please! Now is the time to respond to emergency alarms and flashing lights and build a world for everyone grounded in health, hope, home, and purpose. Now is the time to connect!