Sanctuary in the Desert II

Thinking about the Virginia Tech tragedy, the unending tragedies in Afghanistan and Iraq (among other places), and the endless parade of people abandoning their companion cats and dogs in the "shelters" of the nation; and musing on how they are all symptoms of a much larger and more ominous picture: namely, that of a society that has lost all connection with its own moral North Star, its conscience, its true spiritual center, its compassion.

Day after day after day, we hear/read accounts of the latest shooting, war crime(s), and instances of complete and total moral turpitude, apathy, lack of human feelings toward our fellow human and other living beings.  The statistics in the shelters are most often unseen and few bother to delve into them; the cats and dogs who in the not-so-distant past were beloved family members of the majority of people domestically, seldom form a blip on the radar of today's consciousness.  But they are there, for three days, or two, or less, until society's apathy and callousness consign them to the uncounted numbers mourned only by those of us to whom they still have priceless value.

Buy this! scream the headlines.  Be like her/him! they command.  "You're either with us or you're with the (buzzword of the moment, vilifying anyone who doesn't agree with your in-group)!" the powerful rant, and their sycophants fall over themselves in a mad frenzy to get on board and go along to get along.  So you buy, and you morph yourself into the Look of the Moment, and you toe the party line.  What then? 

At the end of the day, when you lay your head down for a few hours' sleep, what do you think about?  What do you feel, if anything?

Could it be that your lack of thought and feeling are trying to alert you to a vast emptiness inside?  Is it possible that the "cool" things of the moment, the "right look", and the jingoism do not satisfy some deep need? 

Is there any thought for feelings hurt, others neglected and left, lives lost?   Oh, yes, I know it's in exceedingly poor taste these days to remind anyone of anything real or true; but a popularity contest is the last thing I've ever been interested in partaking of, let alone winning.   What I AM interested in, on the other hand, is those feelings, those others, those lives.  For therein lie my own self, my own feelings, my own sorrows and joys.

The two photos above might be thought of as representing two sides of this coin.  The first is of a cat and a man reunited in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  The man journeyed from his refugee location to this joyous reunion; he spoke of his love for his cat, and how finding his cat again meant everything to him.

The second photo is of a cat pulled from "euthanasia" (the politically correct term for "society's apathy and total lack of personal responsibility toward the domestic cats and dogs it once held dear, so they abandon them to assembly-line killing factories, thereby absolving themselves of any guilt") by an overburdened, harried, frustrated rescuer, a friend of mine, who wonders, as I do, when the public will once again wake up and return to the tried and true remedy for most of the things that ail us; namely, the unconditional love and loyalty that only a committed relationship can bring, and that is best exemplified by the love of a cat (or, for those who like them, a dog, or other animal).

I guess the answer to that question lies, as Sarah McLachlan so eloquently sings on the HSUS' latest ad,  "In the arms of the angels".

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• #1 Comment from white6416r 
  5/24/07 2:33 PM | Permalink

  Very , Very    Good.
  
                                              DAD