It Takes A Village: VNV Wednesday – The World Goes Blind

May 24, 2017 MomentaryGrace Found on the Internets, It Takes a Village 9

The Village News & Views May 24, 2017
Wednesday Get Over the Hump Free for All

Greetings, Village Meese. It’s Day 125 of the Resistance and  another Get Over the Hump post and discussion thread for your reading, viewing and commenting.

We live in an age of unexpected, sudden violence.

I wish it were not so, and I know that everyone reading this wishes the same. For the youngest among us, they have never known anything else. For the older of us, there is still and always will be a sudden sick shock and a feeling of incomprehension about why, about how the world we remember became the world we live in now.

Those of my generation were alive when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered on a hotel balcony. When Robert Kennedy was shot while trying to bring our country back some hope.

Those were shocking enough and we believed that we understood that we were living in a generation surviving a national trauma.

But nothing prepared us for Columbine.

I’m not going to list off all the disasters and shootings and murders, to do so would be to disrespect them all. Each deserves its own consideration, recognition and mourning. Each is an anniversary written in sorrow and loss that will never completely heal.

President Barack Obama became the inheritor of an excruciating legacy when he was called to comfort the families of Sandy Hook. And again, disbelieving, we thought we had lived to see the worst in our lifetimes.

How can we bear up?

How do we face each new horror, and how to we give each past tragedy its due?

Perhaps we can’t, perhaps it isn’t possible. It can become all too easy to turn away, to close ourselves off from the pain, to measure how much we allow ourselves to care based on how geographically close was the latest attack, or whether we knew someone who was there, or know someone who knew… If not, we may let it drift away from our thoughts, an understandable and perhaps needful generation of ever so thin scar tissue that settles layer upon layer until we don’t even realize the distance we have created.

If you need that distance, please take it. We have to preserve our own sanity, to choose our battles, to pick our focus. We have to, because no one can do it for you. Not friend or parent or pastor or political figure.

Know when to look away. When to step back.

But… if you find a little strength… for a moment, don’t look away.

Look past the horror if you can, take a deep breath to get past the loss, to endure the empathy.

And see the people. The broken-hearted, the brave, the scared, the trembling. If you let yourself look, and listen, and care, that is the only thing you can really do, sometimes. When you can do more, of course, do it.

But when you feel helpless… look and see what you can – the people. Listen to the stories you can bear. Accept the grief because maybe you can carry just a little of it. That gift may be yours to give. The gift that someone heard and someone saw and did not move right away.

I wasn’t going to make today’s post about the Manchester bombing, because surely by Wednesday, the terror that happened on Monday would be old news.

And then I caught myself thinking that. Maybe not as nakedly as I’ve said just now, but in essence.

Resistance has to be more than protests, more than phone calls and texts, more than marching, more than tweeting…

Resistance must be about resisting a colder world. Resisting hate, yes, but also resisting the dilution of love by numbness.

I promise cat tweets and other stuff at the end, so feel free to skip to that if you need to, but for a moment, I want to look.

I’ve chosen the Guardian for news links.

At least 22 killed, 59 injured in suicide attack at Manchester Arena

‘I ❤ MCR’: thousands gather at Manchester attack vigil

‘Absolute heroes’: praise for medics treating Manchester victims

https://twitter.com/LoveShowbiz_/status/867129595107168256

https://twitter.com/Andy_Watt/status/867121057152606208

https://twitter.com/Jeggit/status/866904396541702144

https://twitter.com/JasonCowleyNS/status/867100783183093765

https://twitter.com/Chris_Alexandr/status/867096984590667776

‘Cause if the water dries up, and the moon stops shining
Stars fall, and the world goes blind
Boy, you know I’ll be saving my love for you,
For you

Best Mistake – Writer(s): Sean Michael Anderson, Dwane Weir, Denisia Andrews, Ariana Grande, Brittany Coney, Anderson Sean Michael

Meanwhile…

WTFJH yesterday…  Day 124: Cuts for the poor.

Wonkette… Here Are 10 Sexxxy NSFW Pictures Of Navy Boys Climbing A Greasy Obelisk, And Now You Are Gay

A Longing for Mister Rogers

(Former Villager) Aphra Behn at Shakesville… Bernie Sanders, Underpants Gnome of Revolution

 .

https://twitter.com/TexDem16/status/867128505720606721

https://twitter.com/Quad_Finn/status/867132654683996160

https://twitter.com/CatsDaiIy/status/864634825990443008

https://twitter.com/CatsDaiIy/status/861373371153395712

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/865225099728650240

Thank you for your patience. Love and peace, Village! Enjoy your Wednesday gathering.

We are #StrongerTogether

We are #TheResistance and #WePersist

All are welcome!

 Photo for header graphic from fistintheair.com used without permission.
About MomentaryGrace 41 Articles
I voted for the Democrat in every election since 1976. I appreciate honesty, kindness and courage. I loathe cruelty and indifference. I am Discordian. I mean you no harm. But if you are cruel, or indifferent, I may point and laugh. #stillwithher.

9 Comments

  1. Good morning, Pond Dwellers. Thanks, MG for pulling double duty today. I don’t work anymore, but hump day is still a favorite of mine. Except, now it means I’m still alive. Which is good.

    It’s so heart wrenching to have to keep living through these tragedies. I don’t know if there is a way to get rid of ISIS. As long as one radical extremist exists, he can use the internet and social media to find willing accomplices. I think of Orlando and whether it was ISIS or the shooter’s own sexuality that led to that tragedy. Just like when Columbine happened, authorities seem to label all school shootings to be caused by bullying. I’m sure some are but believe there are as many reasons as there are events. This is the world we live in. I think that only by making it harder to get weapons will we be able to slow these events down.

    Off I go to explore my coffee cup.

    • I agree that the reasons for these terrible events are far more varied than the news cycle allows. Making it more difficult to get weapons certainly won’t hurt at all. If they are going to kill us, make then work for it.

  2. {{{MomentaryGrace}}} – The Queen and leaders of Parliament are doing what they did during WWII, a time when both the palace and Parliament were bombed just like the rest of Britain, in telling Britain this new atrocity will not break us or bring us down or make us stop being us. And the Extreme Left of the time complained about them doing so then, too. But the people and community of Manchester are standing as strongly and reacting as “goodly” as they did in WWII. What the Blitz of WWII shows is that we don’t stop caring even when the hits are coming daily. We do what we can do, usually but not always locally, when something Evil happens. We send love and sympathy to those, burn candles or pray or those, in places we are not. Send money and that sort of support if we have it. Caring people care. And the caring of the first impact goes out into the Universe and becomes one with it. Doing what can be done to prevent those atrocities from happening is an on-going process – and the further unprevented atrocities seem to displace the earlier ones, but they don’t. Each one is unique, each one brings that caring response when first learned of, whenever we learn of it – even if the event happened centuries ago and all the people involved are gone. The power of that initial caring response is what keeps us working on making things better.

    Sir Roger Moore will be missed. I’m not sure where/when i first saw him – probably as Beau Maverick on the Maverick TV series but that may just be where I put a name to the face. He is a good man as well as a good actor. The Fire Isles of Avalon are richer for his presence.

    Need to actually get to work but I’ll be back when i can. {{{Moose Villagers}}}

    • Thank you, bfitzinAR, and know that my reply to you on DK stands here and everywhere.

      Sir Roger Moore – if you haven’t seen it and you would like a little old school action type distraction, a lesser known movie of his is Ffolkes. His character is an eccentric, misogynist cat-lover who is nevertheless fun to watch. A bit of a departure from Bond.

      I remember him from The Saint – I used to watch it late at night. When he became Bond, it was fine, but Simon Templar was so much more fun. :)

      • moar {{{hugs}}} – and thank you.

        I may have seen that movie, but I’m not sure. I used to have a “memory file” of every movie and TV show I’d ever seen – frequently quoted from “B” movies and “pot boilers” that I saw on The Early Show (old movies at 3:30 weekdays right after school) – but that memory file has long been erased or at least corrupted. I definitely remember him as The Saint and agree with you about Simon Templar v. James Bond. heh.

        • {{{{{bfitzinAR}}}}}}}} I know what you mean about the quotes. I still remember quite a few but less than I used to. ;)

    • {{{Batch}}} – thanks for the tweet – It’s good to see our (Pootie Peep) Mopshell out there Resisting and Persisting. I’ll try to get over to Squirrel Village tonight but I’m dealing with an urgent fundraiser at DK. moar {{{HUGS}}}

    • Oh hai Batch! Thanks for coming by, and glad you liked the post. :-) ♥♥♥♥♥♥

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