Christchurch 50: What Can We Learn?

I woke up this morning to a clear blue sky; then I realised that I get to see that again because I still have the pleasure of doing so; but there are fifty people that had that opportunity brutally taken from them for no other reason than their faith.

There are some out there among us that in our everyday lives are normal decent human beings but upon hearing the news of the awful events in Christchurch; may have felt a little vindictive glee for a fleeting moment and may have thought, how does that feel!

After Paris, Munich, Nice, Brussels, London and Manchester you could be forgiven for a momentary lapse In humanity; but make no mistake, it is what it is; a lapse in humanity.

No one in those mosques was responsible for any of those attacks just like you or me!

Whether you believe in God or not, it’s a binary choice, you either do or don’t. There are among us that sit on the fence in matters of faith but deep down you hope that there is but rationality has a grip; and you loathe the idea of being wrong. For others there maybe a host of reasons to resent the idea because of conflicts of self.

The compassionless among us have no regard either way but the vast majority feel that this abhorrent behaviour has no place in a civilised world. But mankind is a beautiful yet brutal creature, it’s been a century of slaughter on an industrial scale.

The bodies of the innocent litter the world and our history books, yet here we are at the precipice of destroying ourselves yet again, only this time it’ll be an extinction level event. Climate change will end it all. It knows no race, creed, faith or sexuality; our collective heads are on the block and it’s our hand on the lever; this extraordinary act of self harm will claim us all. 

Geo politics apart, can we really put our differences aside to address the herd of elephants in the room? If we do not act now we will reap a whirlwind of such ferocity that half the population or more will cease to exist and the rest will never recover in the next century; our civilisation as we know it could end in a lifetime!

The apocalyptic existence of Mad Max; Water world et al will be a reality. Some say it will relieve the pressure on our resources and is bound to happen so let it be; it’s going to happen so f*ck it; why postpone the inevitable? I’m not gonna be here! That apathetic view might be ok for the disenfranchised; but come on, really? 

One thing is for certain; we need to get a grip, we need to deal with it head on or we’re done. The believers among us are the ones tasked with securing their places in the afterlife and it’s imperative to leave this world in a better place than which you found it; to live wholesome decent lives; to be productive and be able parents as well as guardians of our heritage for the next generations.

Non believers can and are too but it’s faith that has steered humanity on the whole for millennia. There’s nothing more that unites us than the greatest threat to us all; none of us can escape the harm to the environment so it’s down to us to do something about it! 

For us, for our children, for our children’s children; so they can wake in the morning with a smile and be grateful for a clear blue sky, the warmth of the sun and the sound of birdsong as have I this morning.

This is about our collective responsibility; we owe it to ourselves and each other to consider ourselves and each other in the same breath; the differences between us are a mere line in the sands of time which are constantly shifting; only to be redrawn by ourselves because the reality is that we are those grains of sand; and are as such, indistinguishable from one another; as those very same grains of sand; in the greater scheme of things...happy Sunday people!