The news lately has been brutal. And nothing pains my heart quite like a hurting child. Walker Wilbanks’ death shook me as a father. Seeing the story about the five kids murdered, quite possibly by their own father, sickens me. Reading about the bullies who tricked an autistic boy into dumping a bucket of urine and spit on his head angers me. What if that was my son? We live in a broken world. How can a child suffer? I struggle to find words to make sense of it.
A person I greatly respect was in a terrible car accident. Then, to add more heartbreak to her injury, her grandson died tragically. She’s always quick to motivate others. Now she is in mental and physical. I struggle to find words to comfort her.
Tomorrow is the 13th anniversary of 9/11. I remember that day with painful clarity. I remember standing dumbfounded as the jets flew into the Trade Center towers. The flames. The suicides. The collapse. The bravery of first responders and the passengers on Flight 93. I struggle to find words to describe it to my kids.
But maybe words aren’t the solution. Maybe actions are. In a world that seems to have lost its freakin’ mind, maybe it’s time for us all to step up and be a force of good. We create a strong foundation of core values and build on that. It’s time for us to reach out and be what this world sorely lacks.
We live in a beautiful but harsh world. And at times, it seems like all is lost. But now is not time to be victims. Now is, as Coach Bill Courtney says, time to lead by serving. Words won’t cut it. It’s time for action.
Marshall, it should be some consolation that these are not new problems, just ones we know about now when people didn’t used to have access to as much news & reporting in the past. We have tools today that are more powerful than any that have come before to spread the word about troubles and to do something about them, even if only to donate to causes. If you look at the big picture, long-term, we are enormously lucky to be alive today. A hundred years ago, my daughter would not have survived her first few days, given her stroke. There are countless forms of improvement for human life that are easy to forget, hell, even as simple as air conditioning in the South. I think the action we need most in relation to the stories troubling you concerns mental health and both emotional and economic instability. We’re at the beginnings of a movement to do more on those fronts. Thanks for your heartfelt post.
I tell people all the time that my grandparents had more concern while tucking my parents in during the fall of 1941 than I have now. But I still say that we need to stop talking and start doing.