What a terrible, terrible night. Perhaps my contribution to the display of 'unity' will not be helpful in any way but my heart was breaking all evening as each horrible bit of news was spread to all of us sat a little stunned at the events unfolding. This must be a smaller version of what it has been like for cities not in the west to have everything pulled down around them in wars that nobody asked for. We do not face a war here but how hard it is to see a neighbouring landmark rich with history and life and culture be battered with an element of sickly terror. We receive news of guns and bombs in far off lands we might never know in more detail than in pictures, we haven't known these other cities before they became pocked with bullets and bombs. We know Paris. We have breathed it in. How awful it is to watch a home of ours become so shaken up. Perhaps our understanding of the effect of such ghastly events all over the world should grow when it hits our own bubble. Perhaps it shouldn't.
I wonder what my children will learn as a result of this in their history lessons. The same way I have been taught about the Cold War that my parents and grandparents lived through. I wonder what this event will have eventually surmounted to. I hope nothing too gruesome, too cruel, too lacking in humanity; my hope is riddled with doubt.
I am not sure that any of us know what to do with ourselves. What do we say? What stance do we take? What will be our response? Some of us are praying, which is nice if that works for you, but I think most of us just want to show we care. Our unity is touching and isn't the Internet magnificent in times like these? But what we will do afterwards it what concerns me the most...
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