By now, everyone knows. It happened in Paris.
I guess that makes all the difference.
Not because citizens of Paris are any better or more worthy
than the rest of us. Or people who live in any other place on Earth plagued by terrorism are less
valuable. Or the death-deifying act less abhorrent.
Whenever civilian blood is shed in violence – in Syria,
Iraq, Turkey, Nigeria, New York City, Beirut – no man is an island. Every loss of human
life diminishes me and you. Every life matters. Ask a parent who lost a child.
A wife who lost her husband and father of her children.
Most of us react to news of a terrorist attack with shock and
disbelief. A natural reaction to violence is fear, anger and desire for revenge.
But there is something about Paris, about what the City of Light
unambiguously stands for, that fuels a different response. That makes me want
to defy this stupid death rampage with life.
Defy this blindness and darkness with light.
Defy hate with love.
Because sometimes it takes tremendous amount of courage to get out of bed the next morning and embrace life.
To get up even as the silence envelopes the mourners like French flag and dare to eat a croissant in the name of love.
To get up even as the silence envelopes the mourners like French flag and dare to eat a croissant in the name of love.
To share a glass of blood-red Bordeaux in the name of life.
To plant a garden, make love, say a prayer for all devastated by the tragedy (which one of us is not, in some way, some measure?), do whatever it is that in our small piece of Paris
inside our heart affirms life.
Which also makes me think of something else.
Something I can do to stop taking my own life and people in it for granted.
Something I can do to banish the forces of death, subtle as they may be, in my own life. Bring the Kingdom of Life and Light nearer.
Something I can do to stop taking my own life and people in it for granted.
Something I can do to banish the forces of death, subtle as they may be, in my own life. Bring the Kingdom of Life and Light nearer.
Right here.
Right now.
I don’t wan to wait until tomorrow.
I.
Just.
Want.
To DO.
Something.
In the name.
Of
L’amour.
In the name of
La Ville Lumiere.
In the name of
Do not be overcome by
evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21
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