Yet again…

Yet again we grieve for shattered lives and families torn apart. Yet again we wait in anguish for news from family and friends. Yet again my native country is hit. As was my home country repeatedly over the past few weeks. As have many other countries. The world goes reeling from one killing to the next. Punched down and barely standing up again before another murderous blow lands. 

Our vision gets blurrier and blurrier. Evil obscures the landscape. In the fog it becomes harder to keep track of the light. Yet the light shines on.

When our grandson was killed, we knew both the worst and the best. The worst killed him and so many other innocents on that terrible day of December 14th, 2012. The best helped the families survive the shock and horror. On the flight over from Seattle, I remember hearing muffled sobbing a few rows behind us. Seeing distraught families at baggage claim after landing, perfect strangers came and hugged us all. No words. I remember the tide of love. Mostly nameless. Good doesn’t necessarily have a face or a name. Evil often does. Good often acts in the background invisibly sustaining life. Evil gets huge headlines on front pages because it spreads death. And violent death scares us, sowing despair and hatred.

Good is never that loud. Though invisible it is what makes us human. As a child advocate I now belong to an organization that helps minors at risk throughout the country. So much  love and care goes into making these kids’ lives better and setting them on a safer path for the long term. I had no idea before I joined. What I see there helps me hope again.

Don’t wait for the light to shine clear and bright. Go out and strive to be the light. There are kids, older people, sick people, migrant workers, the homeless, the hungry, abandoned animals, in whose lives you can make a difference. Learn how. It may not seem like much. But it will help change our world for the better.

Remember John Lennon’s Imagine!?

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

The world may never be as one but one day it could be less divided than it is today. That’s the world I would very much like the younger generations to inherit.

Meanwhile I grieve for all the victims everywhere.