The world is a mess

How should we respond to the murder of nine people as they prayed in a Charleston, SC, church?

What about the deaths of six students (five of whom were Irish) when a balcony collapsed during a birthday party in Berkley, CA?

How about the deaths of 43 people last month in USA and Mexico due to storms?

What do we do with the statistic that last year the UN reported nearly 60 million people were displaced by war, conflict or persecution? Of that 5.9 million, 1.9 million are refugees and 50% of those were children.

The Head of the UNCHR Antonio Guterres told the BBC that the "world is a mess". Yep, sounds about right.


Anger, outrage, calls for justice, retribution and political solutions are natural human reactions to such tragedies. But they are often fleeting. Tomorrow different headlines will grab our emotions and by next Tuesday the names of the dead, if we ever knew them (what are the names of the 5.9 million again?) will be foggy if not forgotten.

How can we think and feel that changes who we are and opens the possibility of dealing with some of the "mess"?

I wonder what would happen if we stood for while in the homes of the victims? What if we knew their dreams and jobs, their talents and love; sat on their couch and held their loved ones? Perhaps empathy would replace entertainment - we wouldn't want to hear the frantic emergency call or see the bullet holes in the walls. Perhaps action would replace apathy - we would pursue merciful reconciliation as if these people were our own flesh and blood.

You see, it is in our wounds that we find humanity's solidarity. It is there that we all bleed red.