It is a tragedy that our first inclination as a nation is to hurt; to scream at; to mistrust; to curse. It doesn’t seem to matter to whom, or when, or for what reason. We hunker down like whipped animals, lashing out when we feel our backs are to the wall and our last scrap of food is being snatched away.
Of course, our food actually is being stolen, though not always in the literal sense. Many go hungry, but this condition is hardly a universal one, nor do I refer to any real theft of our wealth or possessions, though ample evidence of this, too, exists.
The sustenance we are consistently denied is spiritual in nature. In an age where we see no dearth of religion or its trappings, I do not believe I have ever witnessed (or even read about) quite such a bankruptcy of human warmth, tolerance or joy.
Charity has been supplanted by an almost fanatical absorption with self and the well-being of the individual, however ardently the holy writings of the world’s major religions might advocate the valuation of one’s neighbor over one’s self.
What if the true need we face as a planet is not a set of rules and regulations to which we must adhere, but rather a faith-like devotion to our own betterment as a people and a world. What if, rather than bristling with anger over someone else’s behavior because we happen to believe it immoral, it actually became possible to turn our concerns inward and our love and warmth outward rather than allowing the opposite to occur.
I do not mean to suggest that religion alone is at fault for the wrongs of Humanity. My father was a professed atheist; my mother a devout and passionate Christian. Neither demonstrated the slightest love for this planet or any of its inhabitants, my father believing we are nothing more than animals and my mother eschewing any connection with this world and focusing solely on the next. My grandparents, however, who during the last forty or fifty years of their lives never attended a church service, displayed a concern for their fellow man that would put most God-fearing folk to shame.
Clearly, religion had little to do with their goodness, nor with the outpouring of grief and friendship from so many of the people my grandparents touched when at last they lay, peaceful and quiet, in their caskets.
I take from their lives a profound lesson in kindness and the underlying goodness of Humanity. Call it a matter of faith. Though I see terrible things around me and speak to people whose primary concern has always been and always shall be themselves, I choose to believe that in the depths of the heart, the purity of childhood still lingers, waiting for us to shed the layers of cynicism and derision that we have built up around ourselves; impenetrable, calcified shells that imprison even as they protect. Only we have the power to release ourselves and breathe the free air once more, and this we must do before it is too late; before we grow so cold and insensate that we can no longer feel the cool weight of the keys we grasp in our very hands.

It’s been a while since I put any virtual ink on this page. Life has a way of sloshing around you like the foamy waves of brown water churned up in a flood. Hard to believe, though, that it’s been since October that I’ve had anything of substance to say. 

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