Thursday, December 30, 2004
Contemplating the Unimaginable
The scale of death in the Tsunami has reached the level of incomprehensibility for most of us. The number count is more than we can visualize. It shatters our assumptions of safety and ability, and reminds us of how frail we are and how easily life can be snuffed out.
Peggy Noonan has written a good piece on this, that I recommend. In it she says:
How to deal with this?
It is one of mankind's oldest problems. Things happen. Tragedy exists.
We have two roads here, one dark and one light. We can wallow in the darkness. I have seen people saying, it's Australia's fault! It's the Bush Administration's fault. They set a nuclear device off to cause the earthquake. It's global warming. I have seen people on the right and left accuse each other of using the response for political gain, countries refusing aid from nations they hated, rebels who would let their people die than let the legitimate government work. Others have said don't send any aid to the tsunami victims because they are (choose your poison here) moslem, buddist, hindu, hate us,anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Israeli, they'll just use the money to make the fat cats richer and none of it will reach the poor, they'll use the money to fight against us. All this ill will breaks my heart at a time we should be seeing our brothers and sisters washed up on those beaches, laid out cold and broken on the streets. That road is so dark, I could never walk it and hold my head up again.
Or we can choose the path that is light, that understands we are all together here on spaceship earth, that what hurts one of us hurts us all, that the way to break chains of evil is not with more evil but by doing good. And even if our enemy chooses to still be our enemy, we will not be twisted by their darkness.
As we are facing a new year, with all it's frightening potential, let us for a moment remember our common humanity with all the people on the earth, those whom we love, those whom we dislike, and those who hate us, and know that we are small and frail and short of life. We can live it by walking the paths of hate and seeing misery in our wake, or choose the paths of light, and maybe leave the world a bit better because we loved.
He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)
If you want to help, please check out my list of agencies that are helping the tsunami victims. If you know other good groups, please let me know and I will add them to the list.
Peggy Noonan has written a good piece on this, that I recommend. In it she says:
Of all the things I've heard said of the great horror, nothing seemed to me to sum it up as well as a woman chatting with a man as he cut her hair in New York. The TV was on, CNN. They stopped and watched the latest video of surging waves crashing through a hotel. The man sighed and shook his head. "Life is terrible," he said. The woman said, "Oh it's beautiful, beautiful, but full of pain."
How to deal with this?
How we long to blame
when hurt,
how we long to kill
the very thing
which stole our joy,
our lives,
our security,
and yet,
how does one take revenge
on the shaking earth,
or sue the wall of water
that crashed down
in its destruction?
Source: Walking with Job (exerpt)
It is one of mankind's oldest problems. Things happen. Tragedy exists.
We have two roads here, one dark and one light. We can wallow in the darkness. I have seen people saying, it's Australia's fault! It's the Bush Administration's fault. They set a nuclear device off to cause the earthquake. It's global warming. I have seen people on the right and left accuse each other of using the response for political gain, countries refusing aid from nations they hated, rebels who would let their people die than let the legitimate government work. Others have said don't send any aid to the tsunami victims because they are (choose your poison here) moslem, buddist, hindu, hate us,anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Israeli, they'll just use the money to make the fat cats richer and none of it will reach the poor, they'll use the money to fight against us. All this ill will breaks my heart at a time we should be seeing our brothers and sisters washed up on those beaches, laid out cold and broken on the streets. That road is so dark, I could never walk it and hold my head up again.
Or we can choose the path that is light, that understands we are all together here on spaceship earth, that what hurts one of us hurts us all, that the way to break chains of evil is not with more evil but by doing good. And even if our enemy chooses to still be our enemy, we will not be twisted by their darkness.
As we are facing a new year, with all it's frightening potential, let us for a moment remember our common humanity with all the people on the earth, those whom we love, those whom we dislike, and those who hate us, and know that we are small and frail and short of life. We can live it by walking the paths of hate and seeing misery in our wake, or choose the paths of light, and maybe leave the world a bit better because we loved.
He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)
If you want to help, please check out my list of agencies that are helping the tsunami victims. If you know other good groups, please let me know and I will add them to the list.
# posted by Knitting a Conundrum @ 8:38 AM 
