Television commentary and the conversation
between a Newsagent and their customer summarised the consumption of our lives
now. Only one thing bears talking about. We’re at a loss to make any sense of
the tragedy.
We want to use our words, but they fail us. How can it be, with thousands of words at
our command? But words are finite and pliable to the understanding. Words mean
nothing if we cannot understand what happened.
We want to expend vitriol for vitriol, reminding ourselves, if we’re wise, to not
even go there. There is such a term as a ‘troll’, and trolls don’t just attack
to pierce the front guard; many attack by subtle mind-bending means, and others
are just plain brutal in their pathological honesty.
We want people to stop saying silly things, but we also recognise that all of what this
dredges up is complex. The more we plumb the depths of ethics, the more ethics
comes back at us with conundrums we cannot reconcile.
We want these events out of our minds, but we just cannot seem to escape them. But
likelier we’ve felt guilty for not wanting to bear an infinitely easier burden
than those close to the scene or heart of the victims.
We want life to return to normal, but again we feel guilty for thinking this,
and we somehow compensate by raising the tragedy to communicate, not least to
ourselves, that we feel disgust, empathy, horror, ashamed, sorrowful, powerless,
useless — and myriad form of other words to express emotion — all at the same or
varying times.
We want people who stand for these atrocities to suffer — anything really to make it feel a bit righter.
But there is no way we can even begin to right some wrongs. And these people
who say such insensitive things (and that differs markedly, depending on where
our sensibilities lie) make us incredulous.
We want some end to the suffering that humans bring on humans. We cannot stand it when preventable tragedies
happen. Each of us wants it all to stop! “No more!” can be heard echoing as a
bellow from deep within our souls.
One thing we can know is this. In
being troubled in any number of ways, some of which we cannot even be conscious
of, we must face that we’re being overwhelmed. We must become aware of this. We
must wrest a semblance of control back. We must turn from rage and disgust and
indignation, which are all understandable emotions. We must turn and run from
these secondary emotions into the primary emotions of our fear, our sadness, being
honest about how vulnerable we feel, and run to the only thing that can soothe
us — love.
What we think about most, grows, as
Dr Caroline Leaf says. As we venture backwardly, step by step, cautiously and
trepidatiously, avoiding the precipice we were about to plunge over, may we hear
the Echo of the Ages — “Come to me, child, and be comforted. I will heal your
moment and each continuing overwhelming moment, as they each rise.”
Honesty and humility will take us
inevitable to love. There are so many things we can never hope to control. 
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