You Could Make This Place Beautiful

A week's gone by, and a full one. My girl has survived the first 6 days of a new school, a much bigger one than she's ever been to. She knew only one person in only one of her classes. A week later, she has a lunch group and a few theatre friends. She's auditioned for a play, didn't get cast, but might work tech. And, then she surprised me by applying to be a representative for her class in student government. Considering that 2 weeks ago, she was almost overwhelmed with anxiety, I'm so proud I could burst. If she can face her fears with this kind of aplomb, she can handle whatever life throws at her.

And, I worry every day about what it might throw.

The news has dragged me down lately. Children separated from parents, racially-charged conflicts, and now horrific news from the Catholic church in Pennsylvania. I find it hard to believe that humans can be so callous about the harm they do to other humans. I've let my girl see my feelings, and I realized I was bringing her down, too, when she asked, "Has it ever been this bad before?"

Oh, hon. My first thought was of slavery, lynchings, the separation of slave families, but the more I thought, the more atrocities I thought of. We humans have been horrible to our fellow humans for all of history. The near-genocide of native Americans. The Holocaust. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Any targeting of civilians by any wartime force. The horrible treatment of so many political prisoners and prisoners of war in various places around the world. It's even in the bible. The bashing of babies against rocks. We humans have a bottomless capacity to be heartless, and we always seem to find a way to feel justified when it's us committing the atrocity.

Oh, hon, the truth is, it's hardly ever been this good. There are people speaking up, exposing the things that need to be exposed, calling for everyone to recognize the dignity of all people. We still pray every day that God's kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. I don't think he'd ask us to pray for that and work toward that if it couldn't ultimately be accomplished. It's just a long, long, long process, and our lives are too short to grasp the eternal perspective.

Good Bones
by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I've shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I'll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones:  This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.