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The Wasted Land
It’s Wednesday, two days after the monstrous storm shredded the lives of thousands in the South and of the millions who care about them. The wind here is Massachusetts is gusting this afternoon, a warm wind carrying the tropical mugginess of remnants of the hurricane and of those lives. Thunderheads are building, and there are warnings of tropical downpours, flash floods and severe thunderstorms. A tornado watch, almost unheard of in New England, is possible, even likely, for this evening.
This wind, this rain, are mere echoes of the catastrophe that has befallen those in the South. Oh, I resented them last November, but I embrace them now. I will do what I can, as puny as that seems in the face of such staggering need.
I am one usually energized by weather, but not today. Today the wind seems insidious, seeking out a few last bits of damage to cause before it dies out over Canada. The clouds wait for unmanageable amounts of water content to re-form before bursting anew. Yet I do not romanticize the weather. I don’t think of it as magical or mythic; meteorology can explain it, or should be able to explain it. But weather is no longer purely a natural phenomenon. Emissions and greenhouse gases have seen to that.
I have no patience with those who speak with platitudes and bromides such as “things happen for a reason." Spare me from any sanctimonious morons who talk about this horrific loss of life and dreams being “God’s will” or “The work of the devil." Already, there are those who use the misdeeds of the ruthless few as a reason to ignore the pleas of the desperate and the dispossessed.
The Earth is in our care, and so now also are these thousands of victims.
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If I hear one person say, "Things happen for a reason" I'm gonna smack them into next week and then spit on them!
Judith -
yes, exactly. judi
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When I hear somebody say it is God's will that such things happen, I want to smash their face. I'm sorry, but I do. It's so easy, from the standpoint of one's easy life, to say something like that. You're right -- in this case there was so much human intervention and human neglect involved that such a statement is preposterous. I do believe that tragedies in life are inevitable and there must be an acceptance of that reality or we will go mad. But I find it superficial to place such events on God's doorstep, as though the deity were sitting up in heaven playing a hideous game of chess.
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Thank you! You took the words right out of my mouth. Every...single...one...of them.
In the face of human suffering, some would become arrogant in their stupidity. I am staggered by some of the tripe I'm hearing coming out of the mouths of fools. I AM my brothers' keeper, and steward of this earth.
(oops ~ sorry! Guess I had a few words left...damn.)
A perfect post.
9/17/05 7:21 PM