Reading the paper

The terrible fascinates.

This reading of the paper trains my fear.

I can feel it.

I want to know the disaster even as I recoil.

I am not separate from the deaths, the demands,

and the dealings, the disasters, the deceits,

the demagogues, and the diplomats.

This is our incompleteness, our separation,

our greed at work. Let me own my part.

The world's hunger is mine.

The world's helplessness is mine.

The world's failure to love is mine.

Sober me to this connection in my life.

Let the news be printed on my conscience.

Help me bear it.

(Gunilla Norris: Being Home)

At such a time in our world, where every disaster becomes our breakfast reading, it is important to understand where we stand. There is always the danger of growing 'immune' to such news, a certain unfeeling, having no burning questions about the issues of human rights involved. It may be thousands of miles away, but every person (victim or assailant) is part of the human family, to which we belong, for better or (nowadays it seems) for worse.......

Lord, have mercy on us.