I wrote a long status update on Facebook tonight and I need to expand on that further.
Our world is so sick. Mentally sick. Start with at home, in my own backyard. A young father and his little baby girl were murdered in a tiny little town just a couple hours from here. The little baby girl was two. TWO. She hadn't even begun to live and she was taken and murdered after her father was murdered. SHE WAS TWO. What did a two year old ever do to anyone?
Or maybe the sickness is bigger than my backyard, where daily in my city, people are being gunned down for a bad drug deal on a daily basis.
Maybe the sickness is on a greater level, where we, as Canadians, live in a free country. A country where you can do what you want, say what you want or wear what you want. Maybe people who are different are the enemy who want to take us over and instill their beliefs on us and we might lose our freedoms.
Maybe we care more about saving the elephants than our own kind.
I'm writing this because this is the problem! Save the elephants! Syrians must die because they are fleeing a war-torn country! I'm mentally ill and the rules of society don't apply to me! Is there anything left in this world humans can destroy? Oh, each other? Is that where we're at?
Syrians fleeing has nothing to do with terrorism. In fact, the colour of their skin or their choice of religion does not make a terrorist. These are human souls, pregnant women and two year olds and their families trying to escape their horrible lives. Their homes have been burned and innocent women have been raped and all in the name of power. They are running with nothing but a bag of supplies and their loved ones after their lives have been destroyed; husbands who took vows to protect their wives. These people can stay and die after they fight to the death for their homes and lives. Or they can flee in hopes of a janitorial job and 12 hour night shifts for the next 50 years in a two bedroom apartment to try and make it. It is not much better...but at least they are free. At least they are safe.
I don't understand human kind at all. How can we, on one hand pray for a little white girl to be brought home safe and in the same breath spew hatred over the colour of someone's skin who wants to be safe too? And yet, each and every one of us KNOWS that it's wrong to behave like that.
I don't know the answers. I just don't. I know I want to turn it all off and just keep my head down and keep my own life mine. It is so easy to just survive this sick world with my own bubble of peace. It's easier to have my dog sleep at my feet and know I need to work in the morning and after work I get to spend time with my loved ones. I'm not at risk of my home being burned or pillaged or of being raped or my daughter being raped. I don't have to worry that my son will have his arms cut off or worse, be killed for not joining in the war.
But, tomorrow when I hear that stocks have gone down again, or oil prices have slid, or someone else was murdered in cold blood, or that there are 300 more layoffs coming I will try to not judge another for lashing out at me at the grocery store. I won't spew mean comments when I see someone poorly dressed or who maybe hasn't showered in a few days. I won't make someone feel less of a person because they don't know how to treat others. My journey is my own. I don't know what someone else's journey is. I'm not in their shoes.
If you can't love your neighbor, at least respect them. If you can't be kind, at least try to not be hurtful. If you can't build someone up, walk away. Don't tear them down. If you can't be sympathetic, and least be empathetic.
But if you can, spread love and light.
