I am a bit sad today. It gets tiring watching the rise in intolerance and anger that is happening in the world.
Today, I read about two paragraphs about the people who died in the hospitals because they could not be evacuated during hurricane Katrina. The story was in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.
I could not help thinking about what decision I would make in a situation where so many were suffering in the darkness without food, water or the possibility of help. They could drown in the rising waters, stay or hope that there is a way out.
I could not help thinking if I were severely ill in bed, I may thank the person for allowing me to leave this earth and move on. I’m not afraid of death. It seems like such a natural process to me. I should be that be cherished and celebrated. Maybe those people wanted to go. Do we really know?
Life is fleeting; hanging on to it with such irrational determination is like hiding your favorite fruit only to find out that when you finally go to eat it, it has rotted.
One of the people in the article said, “and who are [those doctors] to play God?” Well, we really play God every day don’t we? From the death penalty to shooting others, we play god. We tell others what they can and cannot do with their bodies, we deny health care to the chronically ill or uninsured and sell weapons to anyone who wants them so that they too can kill.
We pollute and poison people, animals and the planet. Who are we to do all of these things that do nothing but destroy?
We kill with bad food, fattening ourselves up until we can’t move. Each day we judge, make laws, and get angry because “those others” aren’t playing by our rules.
We send soldiers to battle. We kill thousands of others based on our own views.
Who are we to play God?
As bombs drop in Iraq and Afghanistan. While suicide bombers kill randomly. While occupiers declare the other inhuman, dark energies are released. Where do they go?
Hatred consumes, revenge takes hold, and the people go blind with anger and kill.
“Pick up your guns,” they shout. Fear is abound. A shot is fired and an unknowing two year old lies dead. The mother cries, the father screams. An eye for an eye. Where does it end?
The world is paying for the continued violence bred through the decades of fear, hate and revenge of its people.
They won the land by murder, death, kill. Isn’t that ok? Populations conquered. Was it deserved?
Maybe, but where did it begin and if not us, then who will gain awareness and see to it that tolerance and compassion wins while bloodcurdling violence and the destruction of plants, animals and people ends.