The empty glass and the folly of the ostrich
I keep wanting to say something about the Temple shooting. I find that I can’t. People turned into objects in order to slake a terrorist’s hate. I can grasp the shape of it, but not the warped vision behind it.
The 21st century is an era of miraculous things. The Mars Rover Curiosity, the global network of humanity in social media, computing in the palm of our hands.
Yet we blind ourselves to people and suffering. There is a boundary of self-preservation. If we see and feel every horror on the earth, we would crumble. But we don’t acknowledge its existence, and thus our humanity is leeched away.
And yet…we come together in the strangest ways. We dream of Olympic gold, of planets and stars, of things beyond ourselves. We can be so much greater when we see each other, that capacity is infinite. We can refill the cup of hope, fight for justice beyond our borders, and we can reach for a future we are all included in. We can see each other, bloodied or triumphant, and be better.
It’s the first step of shedding our ostrich skins, that is the hardest.
