How Do I Respond To Flight MH17? ...To Tragedy?

I’ve read the news and seen at some of the photographs of the Flight MH17 crash site in Ukraine. People’s lives lost – like that – all of a sudden. I cannot imagine what people are feeling. 

The Devastation. 

I just dropped off a friend at the airport last night. Second airport run in a week. After I came back from the first airport run, I read on Facebook how guys are throwing something on the road to puncture car tires, Once someone stops, they hijack the car (http://www.news24.com/Travel/South-Africa/Travellers-warned-of-hijacking-risk-near-Cape-Town-airport-20140715). I made that drive alone a couple days after these reports happened. And I just drove there again. Thankfully, a friend hopped in the car so I wouldn’t have to drive back alone. Now I would normally feel fine about it, but the image just couldn’t get out of my mind.  

People were held at knife point on my friend’s street the other day, just two blocks away. I walk there all the time. Stuff happens here. And there are worse stories…

Every time I watch a movie about the Bosnian conflict I get transported back to when I lived there for two months in 2001. And my heart hurts for the people and places I knew. Again, so much devastation – what real people went through. What people are going through around the world, Ukraine, Syria, Gaza, Iraq, in Africa… and many more.

Today isn't about fear for me, but it's about feeling and unfeeling. Nor is it about placing a Band-Aid of words where no words can aid the heart. 

I wonder what do I do with this, this emotion, this hurt, this information? Is this what I do, "categorize it" as "information" so I can just gloss over it and continue about my day? ...Without stopping, without seeing? 

Or I can stop for a second.

I know we all can’t jump on a plane and help, and I don’t know what each of our roles is to play. Nor do I know what my role is. But I don’t what to gloss over what PEOPLE in the world are going through – the injustice –  the need for justice, for freedom, for love and care, to know Grace and Light – to be seen as human, just as valuable as you and me. 

I know I can’t understand what people are experiencing. But please know my heart goes out to you, I cry with you, I sit with you, I hold you. 

And I am silent…

If just for a second.

                                                                

What do you need to stop for …and see today?

My hand may not reach across oceans,

but I can hold the hand next to mine.

Is there a hand near you…

That you didn’t see before…

That you may be called to hold too?