Perspective

When I went to pick up my mother for Sunday dinner, the radio news was partway through a story about dead bodies being retrieved after a flood. On the way home, the news was filled with more corpses, nine decapitated ones found in Tijuana, the heads in plastic bags nearby.

We as a community have been inundated with tragedy. Our tolerance levels for sorrow have built up necessarily, else we’d be stultified by basic human decency and compassion.

I think about soldiers and doctors, who are conditioned to cope with atrocity. I think about my friends who are coping with some seriously nasty shit. I think about my shelf full of books on zen that preach detachment--- as if it’s possible to stop caring. And I turn it all around.

Good things happen too, we just don’t hear as much about them. Or maybe we do, but our tolerance there has also increased. Maybe it isn’t enough to take comfort in little things, but it has to be enough that we do what we can to help. Sometimes, all we can do is care.