Fresh in everyone's minds this morning is the massacre of children in Newtown, CT. As our President said yesterday, there have been too many of these tragedies. With media so accessible to us so much of the time, it's hard not to get 'disaster fatigue' when something big and bad happens. Whether it's the mass murder of innocents, or seeing the destruction on a grand scale wrought by Mother Nature, it's the feeling of helplessness in response to something so massive and tragic that creates weariness, and in some, depression.
Soon following a disaster are the many images, personal accounts of tragedy and loss, and with them an unsettling of our sense of security. If it could happen in Newtown, CT, it could happen anywhere. And it has. I still remember the images of Hurricane Sandy, or the Tsunami in Japan, or 9/11 or Chernobyl. The list keeps getting longer. So what can we do?
Doing something in response to these tragedies is a way of reducing disaster fatigue, weariness and our vulnerability to depression and despair. In response to the Newtown massacre, I sponsored another third world child in need, in memory of the children lost yesterday. When I have lost a loved one, I re-commit to love those in my life a little more, a little better. Spreading love, charity, compassion and mercy in response to disasters, both personally and globally, are ways to react and set in motion a greater good. It's my personal statement of protest to bad things to make the world a little better.
