Thawing

I don't want to be numb anymore. I don't want to be dumb either. But when I try to think about the Middle East, that's how I feel. I change the channel. I click the X in the corner. I turn the page. It's gotten so bad that I feel like it has nothing to do with me, so any thinking I could generate about it wouldn't be useful to anyone else. But I have good thoughts... and they might be good enough to share.

It's the end of the summer and I am starting to thaw. The feelings are coming back and I am noticing more about what is going on around me. Where is everybody? That's the thing about going numb, it can last a long time, and when you come out of it, you might not like the way you feel or what you see. That's the thing about feeling dumb, the dumbest thoughts come in your head. Hellabalooza? Rocket ship? oh, right, rocket BOMBS. Kay. Well then, I think I'll shut down again.

I don't want to see that movie World Trade Center. I know, I know, they are trying to show how the human spirit prevailed and life went on. I saw an interview where one of the actors was being questioned about the integrity of making such a film and he made a beautiful point about September 11th being a story that needed to be told. I agree. But I don't know that it needs to be told by Hollywood with special effects that are going to cause fresh new fears or spark up some latent old ones.

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

One of the things that really cuts deep is the thought of all of those meetings that took place, all of the planning meetings with strategies such as using planes with full tanks of gas, airport security on a Tuesday morning, flight plans. How is this plotting and scheming really that different than the plotting and scheming in the White House to enter and attack and kill? and how different are the cheers when any of these so-called missions are accomplished?

Where is everybody? The anti-war movement these days is shit in comparison to the way peeps rallied against the Vietnam war. Maybe the reason is that there's no draft. The middle-class housewives of the new milenium don't have the same threats to their safety. People aren't feeling the fear that personally. I don't have to worry about Timmy getting drafted. and I don't think that anybody is going to bomb Chicago anytime soon. But I'm still pretty scared. My friend Sharon is in Isreal visiting family. Her dad said some powerful things about the fears he's feeling. He said walking around Beirut gave him the same feeling as when he was walking around San Francisco. Here's a library, and look at those lovely apartments! We should think about trying this place for dinner. He asked me how I feel if I heard that there might be bombing of Beruit, and how would we feel if word got around that there was going to be a bombing of San Francisco? Like I said, I started to thaw. It feel hot in the back of my neck. The tears feel hot, too. How close to home does something have to be before there are real feelings about it?

But I'm here. Trying to be present. I'm pretty scared, and I don't feel like I have control over anything, but I don't want to shut down anymore. I'm not dumb either. After 20+ years of Catholic and Jesuit education where I learned nothing about the Middle East, I have a lot of catching up to do. I owe it to myself (and the people that I love for whom the news does hit close to home) to not let the fear control, but to not be numb to world either.