Some guy deciding it was a good idea to send bombs (or things that looked like bombs; it's still a little unclear how readily they would have detonated, but they both sowed terror and concern) to prominent Democrats or donors to the Democrats.
Some guy in Kentucky shot and killed a couple people in a Kroger. I confess, at first, I thought "Probably a domestic-dispute gone very bad" but now it looks like it was racially motivated and the guy went "hunting" after he was locked out of a predominantly African-American church* he was targeting.
And now, some guy shot up a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
I know I've been saying for three or more years, on seemingly endless loop, that the world is broken....and I remember a time not so very long ago that bad, sad news would make me cast on something to donate to charity but you know what? More and more I feel like, "What's the point?"
Charities don't necessarily need more hats. (I haven't seen a compelling call for them in recent months). They do need money, and yes, I've donated what I can to various natural-disaster relief groups including my own denomination's "Week of Compassion."
But something occurred to me today, and I said it on Twitter but I'll say it again here: the world is a very broken place right now and I'm not smart enough or strong enough to glue it back together. Heck, any more, I don't feel like I'm smart enough or strong enough to glue ANY of it back together, that there's nothing much I can do, and that causes me deep distress.
It makes me want to just withdraw. Build a blanket fort, refuse to come out. Try to arrange to get my groceries delivered because God only knows when some jerk is going to walk into the Pruett's and I wind up getting caught in the crossfire and am not situationally-aware enough to drop to the floor in an out-of-the way spot when I hear the gunfire....
and anyway, I still have to go to work. I remember once, walking out of the back of the Fellowship Hall in the evening after CWF, and one of the women asked me if I wasn't worried about the "danger" of walking 50 feet across a parking lot after dark, and I just looked at her and said "I work on a college campus" (this was in the weeks following one or the other of the shootings).
But yeah. I do not like how unsafe and unfriendly the world is. Oh, I know: it probably always has been, and especially has been so for people who don't look or act like me, but still.
I wish there were something I could do that made me feel like I was making things better, but I don't think "better" is really possible any more. Maybe it never has been and people who thought they could make things better were just deluding themselves. I know I used to think that, with my stupid teaching and everything, that I was somehow improving the world. Now I realize the best I can do is go "Well, this is a way to keep food on the table that doesn't involve me compromising my ethics too much" and leave it at that, forget trying to make things better.
I guess this is what midlife is. Not just the death of dreams but the death of idealism.
(* And yes, it makes me so sad that churches now feel compelled to lock their doors but seeing that there was that case a couple years ago where several people in a Bible study group were killed - even after talking with and praying with the shooter! - and last year - almost exactly a year ago now because I remember it was All Saints' Day - Sutherland Springs happened. And it was after that we started locking our doors. Not that we'd be a likely target in some ways: while we'd welcome people of different races with open arms, we are predominantly white. However, being Disciples of Christ, we are "open and welcoming" as they say, and we don't make an issue about things if a member is gay, lesbian, bi, or trans - and we do have a few gay members because we're one of the few churches that welcome gay people in town.So maybe that could make us a target, I don't know. There are a lot of strange things that happen in this world)
I did feel briefly better taking an hour out to watch the My Little Ponies hour-long "special" (which is really more for Christmas than Hallowe'en but I guess they had a slot in programming time now).
It had a subtle "
And yeah, dang, I know it's just a stupid cartoon, but I wish our world was more like that: different species get along in pretty much harmony; different colors and types of ponies don't judge each other based on the color of their pelt or whether they have wings or a horn or not (I know in some of the fan-stuff there is the trope that unicorns are stuck up and consider themselves a superior "race," and the pegasi are kind of dumb jocks, and the earth ponies are hicks, but....in the actual show they seem to work together and get along and everypony has their own kind of magic....)
But yeah.
I need to get back to working on my lecture stuff but I really do feel the need for some kind of nice, cute, fun escape right now. This is where I wish I had (a) what used to be called "running-around friends" - people who were free enough to get together with you on a regular basis and (b) fun places to go nearby. (There is really no fun shopping, short of the quilt shop, without a considerable drive, and there's not a whole lot else to do right in town). And a lot of stuff I could do is not possible or less-fun without a group, so....
Edited to add:
I really hope I don't wind up filling in "at the table" tomorrow; I don't even know what I could say in a prayer that would be helpful and good. If I weren't teaching Sunday school and if there weren't a potluck, I'd consider staying home and claiming "a headache" if anyone asked.
I suppose part of my agony over feeling "I'm not making anything better" suggests that maybe I need to seek out some actual volunteer *work* I can do, something where I am not compensated in money or "perks" (e.g, the editing work I do for ONPS, it's something I can put down on my yearly 'what I did for the good of the discipline' list). I said on Twitter maybe I need to look into getting First Aid recertified, just in case, but I don't know if our local office does that and the nearest "commercial outlet" that seems to do it is in Arlington, and I am NOT driving to Arlington for that. (If it comes down to it: next summer when I go up to visit family, I'll see if there's a short-course in their area).
But yeah, maybe that's what I need. Sending money doesn't feel "real" enough to me.
But what a damnable mess the world is, and it's humanity's fault.
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