Hurricane Sandy . . . Newtown . . . Aurora . . . Israel bombs Gaza . . . car bombs kill and kill and kill in Iraq . . . Syria . . . Gaza bombs Israel . . . no Pullitzer awarded for fiction . . . Mexican drug wars result in horrific killings . . . Benghazi . . . Israel bombs Gaza . . . bus and train crashes, floods and earthquakes, kill thousands . . . cholera and yellow fever and ebola strike the poor . . . drought spreads . . . one gang rape in India and one Pakistani girl shot stand as exemplars for the horror of our violence . . . History Orb
Turning the page on a calendar will not change anything . . . will not lead to a new chapter of existence . . .
But it does give pause . . . a time, a space, for reflection.
Is this who we are?
In the microcosm, how easily I can name the violence done me; 2012 is no exception. But can I chronicle nearly so well the violence I do others? Or does that violence disappear into the fog of self-justification?
We search for reasons as if that changes the thing. But perspective is just another name for forgetting. If we can ‘understand’, then we can differentiate – that could not happen to me, to mine.
But it could. It does.
So to 2012, I bid good-bye. To all the reasons proffered, I say never mind. To all the justifications, I say no go.
You did it. I did it. We did it. Now we live with it.
For you see, when it comes to the whys, well, that’s easy: because we could.
The real question is how to avoid the doing. . . the hurting . . . the wounding . . . the tearing of the fabric of all that is good and holy and just and right and true and worthy . . .
We didn’t call names because we were wounded; we called names because we could.
We didn’t kill because it was necessary; we killed because we could.
We didn’t fail to protect because of anything other than because we didn’t want to.
What good is a will if it is only bent to the self?
What good is a will that leans only towards destruction?
So here goes for my own personal 2013 resolution:
This year, I resolve to do no harm. Period.
Likely I will fail. But in the resolving there is good to be found, progress to be made. And fewer bloody carcasses left behind.
