Privilege Blog

Heartbroken For All The Children, Or, Saturday Morning at 7:51am

There is nothing to talk about except what happened in Paris yesterday.

I am an atheist, and thus won’t #prayforparis. However, even if I were a believer, I wouldn’t be praying, for Paris. I would be so downhearted, so worried, so sorry, as I am now. I imagine we all are, faith or no. But Paris has already happened. One can only hope for healing, and thank the city and its people for many centuries of grace.

I would pray instead for the children who grow up to be the men and women who kill.

Logic follows, because I can’t make my way through these things without it.

Surely there are enough resources in the world, mankind has built, and invented, and produced enough, that nobody would organize to kill others out of need. Must be hatred, greed, or damage.

If hatred and greed, we have to punish. If damage, repair.

I have always believed that mankind is good until damaged. Whether right or not, that leads to more sorrow than rage over events like #Paris. I wish we could repair everyone.

I wonder about the leaders. In what world do they live, that they feel their lives should be used to organize death? And about the followers, so lost they find a family in murderers. And what have we done to whole groups of people, that they make a religion from vengeance?

I feel sorrow for those children who grew up to gun down hundreds of people in a concert hall. And even for the men and women who sit somewhere, in a structure of some sort, planning to do it again. Maybe it’s dark where they are. Maybe they sit and talk over the hum of generators. Maybe they’re surrounded by rocks and dirt. Maybe office furniture.

I wish I could speak to them and change their minds. But that’s the saddest part. For how many is it too late? We all know it’s just about impossible to convince an adult. They’re lost. The children? How many 8-year old boys and girls have already thrown their last stick, or hip-toted their baby sister for the last time? Are they sleeping with guns? Am I inventing these children out of television movies and photos? Do they exist?

Is it too late for them? Is there any way they could come to see the world as the children on my street do, benign, annoying, full of future?

So very sad. All us humans, all our wealth, all our knowledge. Why can’t we muster enough kindness and generosity to stop this?

I can imagine rage, a desire to punish, a conviction about evil in the world, but that’s not how I feel. Just sad. I understand I may be naive, but so be it.

I wish only the best for you and yours. Kindness, generosity, humility, love. We understand that won’t be enough.

51 Responses

  1. All good and reasonable thoughts…I wish for peace and wonder why we all do not follow the Golden Rule.
    It will be interesting to see how our nation is viewed after our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pulls out of the conflict. Canada has been a nation of peacemakers in the past and we are a nation of mixed cultures…a melting pot if you will.
    It is a surprise to me that I was moved so strongly to write about my trip to Paris on the morning of such a tragic event.
    Unbeknownst to me that across the world there were gunmen with a plan and suicide bombers with hand grenades. Such madness and I feel we are helpless.

  2. So sad,heartbroken,still ful of love,post!
    I think the same,all of us who have pure hearts and minds must think and feel the same. I have no tears anymore and I simply could not understand this kind of evil,this kind of religion ,this kind of hartred,with all my psychological education
    ,I know that it exist,I know why, but can not understand in my heart. And never will!
    Why,oh why?
    Love
    Dottoressa

  3. Peace, love and generosity did not stop Hitler. Idealism will slowly be tossed out the window as more and more of this outrageous cruelty emerges. When one’s own family and country are threatened, revenge is desired. Becoming martyrs to this type of destruction will not stop it. Something powerful and disastrous will have to happen. It’s a shame, but all the love in the world will not stop this hateful movement.

    1. @Ginny, No, I certainly don’t. We wouldn’t be in this mess if we’d stayed out of it to begin with….WMD, WMD, WMD. Now we’re stuck with it and who knows what will happen? It’s coming to our shores now. I guess we should just turn the other cheek?

    2. @Ginny, I humbly disagree, Ginny. I do believe love could be enough. Love lived out every moment of every day! We’ve got a lot of evolving to do, though.

  4. This kind of evil violence is so hard for most of us to understand. I think the causes behind it are many and complex. But, the more I read read read on the topic, the more despondent I become about our ability to get to the root cause(s) and take the kind of long term action that some understand, but many do not. To really understand how we got from there to here and how the killers became killers, we have to open our mind to all kinds of ideas and be willing to understand the reasons for disaffection. Evil is evil, I am very firm on that, but in our global world, we all have responsibilities and in our politics infused world, it is often difficult to navigate our way effectively.

    1. @Susan, Yes, exactly. How do we get to the root cause? And if it will take a long time and a difficult coordinated effort to effect change, then, how to protect everyone in the interim from eruptions like this.

    1. @TheLoop, Agreed, let us not be selective. I prefer not to shame people who mourn one event, but rather raise our voices to mourn the other, independently.

    2. There are so many tragedies to address. I do think there is a difference in violence in a war torn region and violence in the middle of Paris. That being said, we are all aware of the breakdown of humanity. Many people care about all human suffering and recognize what is happening.

    1. @Susan,
      Yes, the Atlantic article was eye-opening when I read it in March. We are in a fight to save Western civilization, even if our leaders don’t seem to realize it.

  5. Perhaps kindness, generosity, humility, love, WiFi, public libraries and a manufacturing plant? People who are invested in “the system” are less likely to destroy it…people with access to unfettered information are less likely to absorb and acquire odious beliefs. People who have hope for and possess decent things in this life are less likely to throw it all over cause they believe they DO have something to lose. It is dangerous to deal with those who have nothing to lose.

  6. The French are a force in this world I greatly admire and I choose to send positive strengthening thought to them…..NOT the pathetic cowards who did this. I refuse to wring my hands. It IS too late for some. I cannot nor can anyone “stop” them or even change their minds. Karma will definately take care of them. But I CAN do something positive. Somehow I can just focus on the comeback from this. Those cowards will never, yes I said never ….win at this as long as we stay forward. We can leave them out of the world…..I wish our country had the ??___@@##$ to say- get lost, Keep your stinking oil, or whatever hold you have over us,, They will all self destruct in time. It is inevitable they will be caught in their own web of idiocy. We stay focused on the now, the future, the building. Go!!! Rider UP.

    1. @susie, We may feel angry, our leaders need to focus, get the right information from unbiased parties, review and examine many strategies, work across borders, plan many for many contingencies, and execute without mistakes. So often in the past mistakes have proved worse than doing nothing at all.

  7. I had similar feelings after 9/11.
    What suffering had happened away from our privileged lives, probably instigated by our Western culture that could possibly motivate people to undertake such destructive actions?

    These days I’m not quite as compassionate but I feel sad for the millions of people trying to flee these extremists who’ll be viewed as threats instead of refugees.

    1. @RoseAG, I think a lessening of compassion here is warranted, from what I read. Not for the region, or people in general, but for this particular organization.

  8. My heart also goes out to the children who are refugees now from the civil war that ISIS has helped create. So many children who had no choice in this matter, no choice in their circumstances. What kind of world are we giving to them?

    “Pray for Paris” also rings hollow to me. I don’t think prayers will help very much. We need understanding, knowledge, compassion, love, intelligence, communication, strategies and response plans.

    Thank you for writing this.

    1. @Danielle, You are welcome. Tonight, Sunday night, I have realized that my post was most clearly a diagram of my self. Faced with inexplicable horror, I look to logic, and then to my desire to mother, the impulses that have done best by me over the years. For anything more substantive, I’d have to read for ages. I am glad that for some others, this mapping of self is helpful in these times.

  9. Yes, this act of terrorism is horrific and heartbreaking. But we are not so innocent either.

    I get tired of the wringing of hands about why this stuff happens. I had to resort to a non-USA publication, The Guardian, to get a copy of the message Bin Ladin wrote to Americans after 9/11.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver

    Our own media rarely printed his letter, much less discussed it. Hmmm. Perhaps the powers that be are too invested in the military industrial complex.

    Our ignorance is overwhelming. If we want to discuss the whys, then we should really look at the whys instead of speaking in generalities that hold no information.

    1. Some good reading from the inside of Iraq are a couple of blogs:

      http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

      http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/

      Both of the women who wrote these blogs started blogging prior to the war in 2003. Both stopped blogging about a year ago.

      You can read their accounts of what it was like from the inside. It’s heartbreaking. Neither lives in Iraq anymore, as it is too dangerous.

      If nothing else, just reading their final posts is worth it. It will open your eyes.

    2. @Anon, There’s very little innocence in all this, for anyone over 12. I will say, I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories either, the “complexes” are so often just people.

      1. I didn’t know it was Eisenhower. Fascinating. And I agree, put that way, it’s not a conspiracy. Lobbying in the US government is endemic and has impact, as I understand it.

  10. Lisa, thank you so much for this post. You put the feelings I’ve been struggling to identify into words, sentences -cohesive paragraphs. The global community that is social media has been tough today. I was able to check-in with dear friends living in Paris and people changed their profile picture to show “solidarity”. But will those people donate money to help Syrian refugee camps? Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…. Would they love thy neighbor- as a book tells them too? Even if that neighbor wears a hijab? I don’t have answers. But I’m glad someone else is thinking about love for all.

  11. Beautiful post. Thank you for writing it. I agree with this: “I have always believed that mankind is good until damaged. Whether right or not, that leads to more sorrow than rage over events like #Paris. I wish we could repair everyone.” One has only to hear about the childhoods of adults on death row to know that damage causes more damage. I share your sorrow, and wish I knew how to effect larger changes in our world.

  12. Thank you for your thoughtful post. Reading it and the equally thoughtful comments from our community give me a tiny bit of hope for the world. Especially the ability to look at cause and effect. Makes me think the world could be a much better place if women ran things. How many mothers want their children to grow up to be murderers?

    1. @Northmoon, Dear Northmoon, Sometimes I too think the world would be a better place if women ran things.

      Then I remember the religous zealot, a woman I’ve known since childhood, some years younger than me, who believes: 1) I am a sinner because I married a non-Christian, 2) my husband is an infidel, 3) believes my daugter will go to hell because she is not baptised, (one, two and three are mildly amusing and makes us mindful of our First Amendment rights) then she moves on: 4) it is ok to “strike” your wife and children because she found a passage in the Old Testament condoning it, and number 5) is truly frightening, she believes the murder of doctors who perform abortions to be justified.

      These horrors, what she believes are truths, her beliefs, are just the tip of her iceberg. The tip of the iceberg.

      This woman walks the streets with the rest of us, with main street America. She is white, well educated, a native citizen. If you met her on the street you would think she is nothing more than a pleasant, late 40ish woman.

      Religous fanatics have their own logic. Assuming they will or can listen to logic other than their own is fruitless at best, dangerous at worst. I won’t lump all fanatics together because I want to believe that many believe all life is sacred, but we have to accept that many of them believe only some life is sacred.

      To defeat these evils in the world is going to take more than retaliation. Understanding how they think, what and why they value what they value, and know the roots of their beliefs will be the keys to unlocking a real strategy to defeat them.

      Our hearts have sustained another break this past weekend.

      We are in mourning. For Paris. For the world.

  13. Maybe it’s time to stop hiding behind hashtags.

    Sure, they make it easier for us to wrap our arms around unpleasant events, and they comfort us by reminding us that we are part of a greater community – but I fear they are becoming a way for us to go back to sleep and pretend that we are not on the cusp of a major reshuffling of the world’s order.

    1. In times like this, people want comfort, and community. We’ve always got to balance, as you say, the need for comfort against the need to look discomfort right in the face.

  14. This kind of viciousness leaves me saddened and frightened. No one is safe, anywhere, from fanatics who feel as strongly as these people do. How and why they became this way is something we need to examine. I am holding my loved ones closer and counting my blessings.

  15. Oh, Lisa. I am heartened by the clarity of your critical thinking and soothed by your outlook and beautiful words. I so needed this.

  16. Lisa, I haven’t written about these events, although they weigh heavily on my heart. I may be coming to the conclusion that silence is an incorrect answer, and I thank you for your wise and thought provoking words.

    I love this post, and your prayers for the children, as these are the ones I worry for the most. Who is to say which child will grow up to be a terrorist or warm bundle of generosity or all the levels of existence in between? I suspect it is not so clear as we would like it to be. Just as I fear, that although we live in a world that is so much safer than the one even our great- great- grandparents lived in,(for those of us in certain countries) that our safety makes us too complacent. This is not to say the shock is any less valid, perhaps even more so. We need to be comforted because our compliancy has been shattered. We need to comfort those whose loss we can barely comprehend. Mostly we probably need to open our eyes and our hearts, to save those who are vulnerable before their hearts become closed.

    1. @Mardel, Yes. And since I wrote this, and have been reading around, I see that the “we” who has to help is governments as much as individuals. There are historic, systemic, and specific issues at play. If we can just keep ourselves in a place of kindness rather than rage, I think it will all go better.

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