Reflections

This is the first essay I wrote with the title of Reflections.  I have decided to post it, also.  


And life goes on.

It continues amid chaos.  It moves forward through sorrow.  It marches ahead with resolution.  It simply moves.

And while it moves toward the new tomorrow, hundreds of people are forever changed.  The tomorrow they will meet is so very different from the now they are experiencing.  Each day will present challenges that are new.  Nothing will be the same as it was the day before.  Those days before are, for this time,  swallowed up by the changes of the now.

We ask why knowing even as we ask  there is no response that will satisfy.  No words that move us from anger and hurt to understanding.  No words yet invented to explain these senseless acts.  We see pictures of people walking through happy crowds with an agenda so different.  They blend in.  They look like everyone else.  Out for a walk through the city on a day of celebration.

No behaviors that signal the intent within these people.  Nothing to cause alarm.

What moved them to make the decision to destroy?  Why not simply return to the homeland and live out lives with those they love?  Does killing make something better for them?  I don't understand.  At all.

  We watch our citizens rush to help even when their own safely is compromised.  We see the pictures of strangers comforting victims.  And our hearts swell with such pride.  We cry with those who are mourning the death of their family members and friends, for those who must learn a new way to live in this world, for those first responders who saw what no one should ever see.  We pray for the healing that will come--slowly.  The healing of spirit, mind and body.  We pray for people who will help them walk this new walk.  And we are thankful for the skills and love of those doctors and nurses who were faced with unimaginable injuries.

Where do we go from here?  We go where we have always gone.  To work, to church, to family events, to games, to hospitals to visit and offer support, to funerals of those gone too soon.  We continue with our lives because we have no other choice.  However, we move forward with new understanding of this world.  Will this new understanding cause us to cease from living full lives?  No, it will not.  If that was the intent, they failed.

I will close this with a quote I read years ago.  I don't remember where I found it, or who wrote it.

"One act of compassion and caring can change a life forever. "  Yes, it can.

Take care.