Hope Amid the Horror

People are dying in Gaza.

Commercial aircraft are being shot down over Ukraine.

Talking heads on TV and on the Internet are berating us

...for being Gay, Lesbian, Transgender or any other permutation of being human that is other than Straight.

...for being female

...for being from this country or that country

...for having a different skin color, different accent, different beliefs

...for putting this or that into our own bodies

...for being anything other than whatever they subjectively see as "perfect".


Teenagers are committing suicide in one country over faceless virtual bullying,
their attackers hiding behind the dangerous anonymity of one-way phone or computer screen.

People in another country are starving to death, ravaged by disease.

Children and teenagers in yet another country are being handed weapons and told to go fight.

Meanwhile our planet is spinning in a swirl of pollution and waste,  our air and water becoming as toxic to life as our treatment of each other.


 I find myself wondering if this is some sort of end-of-times.  A sort of collective day of reckoning where all our evils are coming together in one giant, pointing finger of accusation.

But I refuse to believe our world has to be this way.

Because alongside all these terrible, numbing evils, there is good in us.  And in that good, is our potential to change.

I don't have to look far to see that good.


I see it in the eyes of my students.

I see it in the periodic generosity of strangers, who stop to help others in need, in pain or in want.

I hear it in the  periodic rants of my daughter,  who this very morning informed me that "In 20 years, this world is going to be a very different place.  Because my generation is going to fix  what your generation broke."   And while I had mixed feelings about evidently being pinpointed as the poster-child for all the world's ills, she had a very valid point.

Don't we always look to the NEXT as a remedy for what is wrong NOW?

Don't we say "I'll do better next time." or "I'll take care of that next week."  or "My partner/associate/colleague/friend will take care of that for you."?

Humans are skilled postponers.  We have a collective motto that is only now being re-examined:

 "Do tomorrow what you could do today."

And this motto has been clung to by world leaders as much as by everyday folks.


I like to think that my generation had it's shining moments as well as it's failures when it comes to caring for this world.

 However I cannot say that we are blameless.   We have fallen, as previous generations have, into the "Do tomorrow what you could do today"  trap.

None of us are innocent.  We all have a carbon footprint that expands every time we pretty much do anything--from turning on a light to putting on our polyester-blend shirt to sipping a cup of coffee.

And as we turn on our lights, wear our polyester-blend shirts and sip our coffee, we look to our future full of maybes...

maybe there will be solar power everywhere

maybe we will turn our considerable resources towards feeding, healing and caring for everyone equally, instead of dividing the world into hard lines of "haves" and "have nots".

maybe we will stop killing each other

maybe we will stop selfishly holding ourselves up as the moral standard by which everyone must live.



Maybe.


You and I might not be able to stop the horrors that are splayed across news headlines and screamed, amid pounding theme music, from TV and Internet talking heads.

But we can decrease the small horrors that we encounter--and maybe even cause--every day.

Buy a hungry person something to eat.

Read by sunlight instead of by lamplight.

Be content in your own choices rather than try to control the choices of others.

Find your own peace.

And try to "Do today so that we all have a tomorrow."

Until next time...