One of the illusions that we find comfort in, especially in our online lives is that the world is cheery and wonderful and bright. That we all have “futures so bright, we have to wear shades.” We enter our chat rooms and our hang-outs, where we are all of one mind and heart. We speak diversity and welcome all with open arms. We stand together as we chant our online mantras of peace and unity and “SoMe has no ROI.” And all is right with the world until…
Until the outside world crowds into our little existence here.
A cyber-friend sent me a link to an article last week, that I’ve been thinking about for the last few days. The article can be found at:
Hate Crime: 19-Year Old Kicked, Beaten To Death As Anti-Gay Slurs Hurled by David Badash on August 22, 2011 in “Bigotry Watch, Discrimination, Hate Crimes, News”
Do I know Marcellus Andrews or his family? No. But I do know hate and poverty and separate-ness.
The sadness this story evokes is multi-leveled and muti-layered. Once I could take a deep breath again, I tried to decide what’s the saddest part of this story.
Is is that a young boy seemingly, full of potential has lost his life for no apparent cause?
Is it that a young man cannot be gifted / (presumably) gay / black and survive in this world?
Is it that we have bred such a generation (and I’m not just talking about the boys in this story) who would take a life for nought?
Is it that we have not progressed significantly since Cain and Abel (or cavemen, if you like) with the exception of our shiny toys?
Is it that the rest of us want to look away disgusted for the moment, pretend that nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and get back to some normalcy, asap?
Is it that some of our hearts break and bleed, but we offer nothing more to the family of Marcellus Andrews or any of the other children we see “drowning” every single day?
Is is that, like the commenters to the original post, we want to rail against the sky claiming that this is the fault of the politicians?
Is it that next week we will be consumed by and weeping over something else, and forget all about this? Don’t believe me? Tell me: What’s happening at the reactor in Japan today? What’s new in Haiti? How are the poor people in New Orleans faring?
What hurts the most?
What they do?
Or, what we do not do?
There will be a new pain tomorrow. A new crisis, a new hand-wringing and heart-wrenching catastrophe will appear the next day.
And, I know this sounds trite, but: We are the hands and feet of Christ…
And, if you are in the group that doesn’t like Christ OR the group that likes Christ and doesn’t like gays or blacks or somebody else, OR some other subset of our one race…
We are still the hands and feet that need to get things done.
Help someone…
Do some thing…
There is no one else.
It’s amazing how too many people are afraid to speak such great messages like yours. What a great post and eye opener of the many issues that are currently happening. It’s not just about the economy always being bad but there are other issues that are more important as well. Thanks for the reminder.
I love reading your post so much that I awarded you the Versatile Award.
Congrats,
Barbara
Thanks for the kind words and compliments, Barabara.
Thank you for being a truth-teller, Martina!
Thank you for the compliment, Donna
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Hello Martina. It’s my first time to be here.
“Is it that we have not progressed significantly since Cain and Abel (or cavemen, if you like) with the exception of our shiny toys?”
Unfortunately there are times when I think that the answer to that question is “yes.” However, there are those slivers in time when humanity seems to be able to redeem itself.
The ability to introspect and then converse about the issues of our times lends us the tiny opportunity to prove that we are beyond our beastlike instincts. Yet, we will always be disappointed with events such as this.
Time and time again, we have found that technology is not the answer, yet we are addicted to it because it always presents us with something new.
__
Hands and feet of Christ: I’m going to be honest with you regarding my faith as of the moment. I’m reading a book on the life of Christ and the more I read about it, the more that I get feeling that Jesus Christ died on the cross and that’s it. But that’s a long story.
Anyway, there’s a lot of bad and inexplcable stuff going on in the lives of people nowadays and sometimes we tend to ignore other’s problems because our own problems may feel overwhelming too. The current theme nowadays – and the media has been particularly adept at this is the
iAttitude.
iPad, iPod, iTunes, iEverything
iMe.
Thanks for the comment.
I look forward to hearing the long story.
I completely agree with you, we are self -focused. But that won’t work well or long. There are bad things happening all around us.
So we must ask ourselves, Christian or not, are we part of the problem, or are we part of the solution.
Sweet!
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Your Lamentations-for-all-our-lost-boys was great! And, I must agree, we can all do more.
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Thanks for the support.
Not sure what your question is, but I plan to do a follow-up post.
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Thanks for the support.
Contact page listed at top
Thanks for the compliment.
Contact tab at the top.
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I was curious if you ever thought of changing the layout of your website? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or two images. Maybe you could space it out better?
good thing many of us have the internet
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I plan to follow up on this piece.
However, I am not certain that any of us will ever truly understand.
Thanks for checking out the blog and the story.
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I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own weblog and was curious what all is required to get setup? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny? I’m not very internet savvy so I’m not 100% positive. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers
We have a short, ongoing series about starting a blog.
Ahead of the next post for that series, I will say that there are several free services available.
Best of luck. Feel free to ask questions.
Would you mind letting me know which hosting company you’re working with? I’ve loaded your blog in 3 different browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot faster then most. Can you suggest a good hosting provider at a reasonable price? Thank you, I appreciate it!
Hostgator has worked well for us.
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We all pass over and by people every day that need a hand up.
We cannot defer that need to schools or other agencies.
We are responsible for mentoring the current and the next generation.
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Thanks you for the support.
Thank you for your support.