My dearest amigas,
I admit I am a news junkie. One of my permanently open tabs is the NY Times website. I also frequent the Star Tribune and the Journal Gazette's websites at regular intervals.
All the pictures of bodies being thrown into dump trucks and stories of how the voices crying for help are getting much fainter in the streets rips my heart out. Granted, any news is rarely happy news, but this time around the hopelessness feeling is really overwhelming. It's just so sad. People whose daily suffering before Tuesday was unfathomable to me now becomes a thousand times more unfathomable.
Where is the hope? The only thing I know at the moment is that the answer is not to become less of a news junkie like many people have suggested to me. Ignorance is not bliss, it's just ignorance.
How do you find hope in the face of hopelessness?
I guess you just have to look for the hope. I was listening to a story on NPR where they were talking to a man in Haiti. He talked about how right now everyone down there is doing what they can to help one another. I think there's at least a little hope in seeing that the human condition doesn't just lead to complete entropy in the face of a disaster of this magnitude. Where the news correspondents expected to see looting and lawlessness they have seen neighborly love. The story that touched me most was of a man who hadn't lost any of his family who was going to the clinics and holding the hands of those who had lost everyone including an eight year-old little girl.
ReplyDeleteBut also, for me anyway, I have to cling to the little bits of hope in my life. Like the little boy who told me all about galapagos penguins two days ago at the Ellettsville Library.
There was a strange coincidence to go along with this story. The day before the earthquake, the language department at Roncalli invited two Haitians and service workers to talk to the kids. Every year we raise money and materials for those most in need in Haiti.
ReplyDeleteThe day after the presentation and the quake, kids came into my room saying "What are we going to do?" I have had several student bring in shampoo, medicine, and other supplies to share. It is especially powerful to see young people getting involved in helping people they do not know.
It is hard to understand why these tragedies have to happen, but seeing love from one person to another is truly inspiring.