The Shooting In Newtown, Connecticut

My heart is just breaking today for the all the people who lost loved ones today because of such a senseless tragedy.  I couldn't even watch the news.  It was just too much for me.  I think of all the innocent lives lost today and, even more, the innocence that has been taken away from those kids who survived.  It is so overwhelmingly awful.  When will stuff like this ever stop?  And why does it always seem like things like this happen so close to the holidays?  My heart grieves so much for those who will not ever spend another Christmas (or another day, period) with their loved ones.

All these parents did was send their kids off to school.  All these kids and adults were doing was going to school and work.  And then this guy has to come in and destroy innocence and lives.  I am normally such a forgiving and optimistic person, but this was just too much for me.

And then there's all the "whys?" and arguments for and against gun control and politicizing and the media trying to get the next sound bite, and it's just too much.

We have got to be kinder to each other.  We have got to keep our humanity.  We have to show more love and compassion, just in general.  When I read the vitriol in the online comment section of a newspaper or read some heated Facebook argument or see some reporter trying to pry the gory details out of six year-old kid or see videos of Black Friday shoppers mauling each other for some eternally worthless bargain or watch human beings treat each other with contempt or ignorance or watch politicians squabble to gain political power at the expense of the people they supposedly represent or read stories about kids driven to suicide because of bullying or see examples of racism or watch some clip of some stupid reality show that celebrates and exploits bad behavior and ideals or become smothered by the 24-hour news cycle of all the horrible things human beings do to each other, I crave a world in which love and understanding and hope and light and compassion and charity and thoughtfulness and joy are the norm.

I continually try to find the good in people.  I try very hard not to judge and to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I try to exercise mercy and compassion.  I am not always successful, but I really try.

I long for a world in which kindness and love are the ideals.  Days like this make me feel like we are losing that.  The world and its people just seem to get more wicked and selfish, and it has to stop.  It just has to.

---sigh---

Things like this and this and this remind me of the good there still is.  And, in my heart, I still believe that humans are mostly good.  I hope so, anyway.

One of my very favorite quotes is from Anne Frank, who had every reason to think otherwise: "It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." 

There is another I like: "I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death... I think... peace and tranquillity will return again."

I have to believe this is true.  It's all that keeps me going sometimes in this crazy world.