Pick a day, any day, for as long as you can remember and long, long before that. Let”s pick today and harvest a few quotes from the news: “Death Toll Rises in Mideast”; “The deadliest day yet in the deepening two-front Middle East crisis claimed more than 70 lives in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and northern Israel, with no immediate cease-fire in sight”; “The country [Lebanon] has been torn to shreds”; “Two Israeli Arab brothers, ages 3 and 9, were killed as they played outside in Nazareth … hit by one of roughly 120 rockets Hezbollah launched into Israel”; “Israeli weaponry rained down on Lebanon … Most of the dead were said to be civilians”; and this one: “At the United Nations the Americans … signaled that they will give Israel more time to continue the bombardment of Lebanon”.
Space being limited, I haven”t included news from Iraq, Africa, South America, China or Lake County.
Sit in our courtrooms, read “Your Opinion”, the Bee headlines, articles and police logs and check out the domestic scene in your own home for acts of abuse and violence occurring daily, every day.
Most of the time I simply don”t want to feel the ever-incoming tsunami of intense pain, fear, hurt and rage boiling off millions, billions of humans treated inhumanely by humans; oh, another 70 men, women, children killed here, another 120 killed there; hundreds of thousands made homeless, jobless and familyless around the world, with the physically, mentally, emotionally, psychically wounded too many to count, I among them; perhaps you, too.
The Voice of the Heart then asks, “Even so, can you always live as Love?” And a voice moist with tears, mine, replies, “Yes, I can; help me do this.”
Eric Leber
Kelseyville
ericleber@mchsi.com
