There'd Be Cancer

Even if we loved each other-- even if each one of us was merciful, compassionate, loving, decent-- there'd be plenty of hurting.

Cancer, for instance.

In a loving world, there'd be cancer. Maybe not as much, if we weren't poisoning each other for profit or ourselves to make up for the lack of love, but there'd be cancer.

If we loved each other, if we lived like we all mattered, thee'd be cancer.

And there'd be car accidents. Slips and falls that break bones. There'd be traumatic brain injuries and there'd be kids born with all kinds of disabilities that would add difficulty to their lives.

Tere'd be the flu. And pneumonia. There'd be those painful break ups when people care about each other but they realize that it's just not going to work.

In a world full of everyone doing their very best, there'd be toothaches and headaches and stomachaches. There'd be Alzheimer's. There'd be hearing loss and vision loss and heart disease. There'd be terrible floods and tsunamis and tornadoes and earthquakes leaving devastation and death and all kinds of heartache.

Much of the time, the world is good.

But the world is also full of all kinds of pain.

The world is full of suffering. And however good we are, we all get our share.

And I can accept that.

People that I love die sometimes. People that I love hurt often. Sometimes, I hurt.

I don't necessarily like any of that, but liking it or not liking it is irrelevant. It is. There you go. The end. It's what is and it is and it's the world we have.

A world that sometimes holds a lot of heartache. A lot of pain. A lot of suffering.

I can take that. I'm okay with it.

On top of all of that hurt though, in addition to all that just is and will never not be, why the hell do we have to be so damn unloving?

On top of all that hurt, why do we have to heap so much shit and pain? In the midst of the heartache and the sadness, why do so many of us so often have to stand there and twist the knife,salt the wound, spread the pain?

That part I don't get, and I haven't quite learned how to accept.

The infidelities. The hurtful lies. The greed. The bigotry. The hateful rhetoric. The bombs and the guns and the indifference, the exploitation.

The evil that we do.

In the mostly rural community where I work, a six year old girl was murdered the other day. Her mother's boyfriend stabbed her to death while the mother and the other kids slept.

For the past few days, that's been weighing on me.

I can't explain it, can't explain why.

It's just... been weighing on me.

Making me tired.

Making me disappointed.

Making me sad, of course, for the little girl, for her sister, for her brother, for her mother, for all the people that knew her and loved her, for all the kids in her class who will feel less than safe in the night for years to come, suddenly aware that they are vulnerable, suddenly aware that the world is full of evil.

Sad for each and every one of us. Sad that while only some of us pick up knives (or pick up guns or drop bombs), after thousands of years of the collective belief that it is love for one another that will set us free, we are all still busy finding countless ways to tear each other apart day after day after day after fucking day. Countless ways to be unloving.

That makes me sad. For all of us.

And just so damn tired.