I was all ready to post something cheerful when I heard the news about the school shooting in Connecticut. The words in me left and I still have not found them.
How does a person write about such a tragedy - or write about anything else. This Advent has been a dark, dark time. Those children now gone - and their families. There are the families of children who were spared. And adults so committed to children gone from this world.
Fiscal cliffs, monster storms and multiple vehicles collisions, continued warfare - if anyone has any shred of innocence left in them, it must be gone by now. Yes, the world has ended, the world where winter meant ice skates and the smell of the wood stove in the warming house. Christmas caroling and gift-giving. Cheering the snow falling softly because it meant the soft of cross-country skiing and the prospective of sledding down long hills on toboggans. An innocent life that had spaces for laughter and faith that tomorrow would be better than yesterday.
Of course, this century is not the first for warfare and violence. But the instant global connections we now have means the Connecticuts and the Syrias are right there before us. It is said that it took months for word to reach Ben Franklin to learn about events in this country when he served as the first US Ambassador in France . When I was young, letters as the only means of communication to someone living elsewhere used to take several days to arrive. And calling long distance was reserved for emergencies - and folks talked loud because the other person was far away.
Now I can text family and get instant responses from wherever they are. And I can follow the news as it is happening.
So the faces of children in Syria and Connecticut are right there - closer to me than the faces of my neighbors who stay inside out of the cold wintertime weather.
Words? How do you describe terror - horror - unspeakable grief? Or fear, anger, and despair?
No comments:
Post a Comment