While Paris turned off its lights in mourning, the world lit up theirs in soldarity with Paris...

[shadowkat]

The News Today...Oh Boy.

It's odd how we learn about things. I rarely watch the news...for it seems to be rarely entertaining or joyful. 24/7 news channels and mainly hyperbole, hate, and gossip. The new is more violent than the scripted television shows that bracket it.

Today, there was a shooting in NYC -- some terrorist action somewhere in Manhattan, I don't know what it was, I flipped off the news before it went much further. It seems every day, there's more of it.
I saw on facebook, an interesting post that said this:

IRAQ
Syria
Beriut
Paris

(I'd add NYC to that list...hello? 9/11?)

It's a natural inclination to want to withdraw when hurt and become self protective but we need to open up our hearts and minds and borders. The world is in trouble.


“It is not Paris we should pray for.
It is the world. It is a world in which Beirut
reeling from bombings two days before Paris,
is not covered in the press.

A world in which a bomb goes off
at a funeral in Baghdad,
and not one person's status update says "Baghdad",
because not one white person died in that fire.

Pray for the world
that blames a refugee crisis for a terror attack.
That does not pause to differentiate between the attacker
and the person running from the very same thing you are.

Pray for a world...
where people walking across countries for months,
their only belongings upon their backs,
are told they have no place to go,
Say a prayer for Paris by all means,
but pray more,
for the world that does not have a prayer for those who no longer have a home to defend.

For a world that is falling apart in all corners,
and not simply in the towers and cafes we find so familiar.”
~ Karuna Ezara Parikh

And here's what happened, last night, around the world...when Paris turned off its lights in morning.
It made me cry tears of joy, hope, and love.

When Paris Turned of the Lights of the Eiffle Tower in Mourning, the World turned on its lights in Support



And then, on my live journal, frenchani and elsie posted a link to this - a man used his bike to pull his piano up to the location of the shootings to play the song Imagine, which is a beautiful thing to do:

So, I think, we, all of us, have a choice. We can focus on the crazy people who did this. On the justifications they gave, justifications that continue to bolster hatred and prejudice towards the Islamic religion and Muslim community, or we can focus on the helpers. The fact that world stood up after the attacks and asked, how can we help? We love you. We have your back. It's the same choice we faced after 9/11, after the 9 people were gunned down in a church in South Carolina, after the various school shootings, after Beriut, after Syria, after Iraq, after Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Croatia, WWII and after WWI, and after oh so many wars..and so many horrors and so much death. Do we lash out with hate? Or with love? Do we cower in terror? Or stand up in joy?

Here's a link on what you can do to help:

What you can do to help

On Twitter and Facebook and various social media sites - Follow or participate with the hashtag #PorteOuverte: The phrase means "open door" and has been used by Parisians offering their homes as shelter for anyone who needs them. People in other nations have also used it to offer a place to stay for French citizens who are stranded by plane delays or by the country closing its borders in the wake of the attacks.

Now, this is the world I want to live in. And the world I'm going to fight to preserve. Although I don't really have any space to put anyone up unfortunately. But if someone doesn't mind a futon couch that is rock hard - and is stranded in NYC, let me know.