Terror

A friend posted on Facebook that she was afraid to drop her kindergartener off at school today. The terror of the school attacks in Newtown, CT and Chengping, China on Friday, as well as the reports of averted attacks in Indiana and Oklahoma, are indeed heart-wrenching.

Still, I don't know how to respond. Am I a bad parent because it honestly didn't even cross my mind as I made Boy's lunch this morning? Am I a bad person for believing that we are ALL at fault for allowing a community to develop where such things are possible? Am I jaded and cold to say that life will go on and that I doubt much will change for the better?

Terrorists will continue to chip away at our communities, and they will continue to win. They are adept at finding weak points and exploiting them. They make us weak through isolation, encouraging us to shutter our windows and lock our doors.

People are afraid of their neighbors. Every thing we do is on surveillance because we don't trust anyone. The crusade for democracy abroad, largely unsuccessful in its own right, has proven remarkably effective in building a technological template that could be just a few tweaks away from creating a domestic surveillance state -- with omnipresent cameras, deep data-mining, nano-second biometric identification, and drone aircraft patrolling "the homeland."

People are afraid of immigrants and foreigners. What happened to the Land of Opportunity? Where is the "melting pot"? I have friends who have come to the US of A to learn, and they have shared their difficulties in finding housing because they are from Italy or Canada or Israel and have an accent. I know people who are afraid of visiting ME in my home because there are billboards printed in other languages.

The lives lost are a tragedy. I, too, have lost loved ones and I know that mourning goes on through the rest of your life. However, we do not have to allow the losses to cripple us. Instead of being sad or angry because of what has happened, reach out. It is our connections and our willingness to be open to each other that makes us strong! If everyone knew the names of every person on their block, how much stronger, how much MORE could we do?