I am listening to a program on the radio. It's on NPR. It's a memorial service. There are apparently clergy representing every denomination in Newtown, Connecticut. Each is giving his or her message and prayers. I have not heard a child chanting from the Qu'ran before.
I'm not one of those to read every article, watch every program, look at every citation on line about this, our latest global tragedy the wanton slaughter of innocents (and that includes the adults). Has anyone else noticed that none of the adults lost were "old enough to die" either?
It is my opinion that the internet has created of our world a true global village. It has removed from between us all, time and distance. I can chat as easily with an acquaintance in Australia as I can with my friend just blocks away. In my mind, that makes the woman stirring rice in her pot in India my neighbor just as I am the neighbor of the woman boiling maize in front of her hut in Africa.
Therefore, when children die in the Middle East or Asia or Patagonia, Iceland or Russia or Canada, I feel a deep sadness for my sisters, their mothers. Nature's balance designates that a child is born, grows, has children of his own, advances in age and dies. When that balance is overthrown and the child dies before the parent, it has a unique sadness. I find it poignant - perhaps a tiny bit comforting - that the children left this earth accompanied by loving teachers.
I am not here to expound; just to say that my heart, like the hearts of so many, finds this latest incident incomprehensible, beyond the scope of my understanding. I need no proof of the existence of Evil.
My prayers are not found in any book, are not repeated by any group of people, could not be identified by any traditional title. But I implore with an earnest heart, that some small comfort come to everyone touched by sadness, whether the deep grief of the bereft or the passing woe of anyone who gasps upon hearing of the tragedy.
It is enough. No more.
1 comment:
I agree. Never again.
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