Sunday, July 24, 2011

Waking Up to Tragedy...

I keep reading the articles that pop up on the various news tickers about the tragedy in Norway. After an evil event has unfolded it’s difficult for many of us look away, as our brains work overtime to try to make sense out of senseless violence. And so the media works to give us every detail, and we absorb those details, trying to put the pieces together and understand the motives of someone who obviously had major problems (that feels like the understatement of the year).

My heart breaks for the people of Norway, for the young lives that were lost and the families that are mourning children and brothers and sisters… but also for the country as a whole, because I imagine that for many, even those not connected directly to the tragedy, life will never be quite the same.

There’s a feeling that I get now and then when I wake up in the morning, that’s been with me for about ten years (has it really been that long?) that will probably remain for the rest of my life. It’s the uncomfortable knowledge that something horrible can happen, while we’re asleep and that we may just wake to find that the entire world has changed in a way we’d never imagined. It’s usually just a fleeting thought, a question almost, of whether or not this morning, when I turn on the radio or check my computer, some horror will have played out while I was safe and sound in bed.

Before that day a decade ago, we’d all seen awful things on the news, but usually they were half a world away, and while horribly sad there was a certain distance that existed between the living room where I would watch the news and the scenes that played out in quick clips from around the globe at six o’clock each night. Attacks that are closer to home feel… closer to home…

And so I pray for the people of Norway and all who have lost loved ones to violence, and for those who have had their world transformed by that violence. And I pray that the mornings where we wake to such horrible news are few and far between…

2 comments:

  1. Thank you very much for your thoughts and prayers, we need them now! I am a regular reader of you blog living in Oslo and working in one of the buildings hit by the explosion (I was out of office on Friday, thank God). I have never left a comment here before, but reading your post today deeply touched me and I feel like thanking you. Knowing people around the world pray for us and cry with us is a great support in these horrible times for our small country. Thank you!

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  2. Hi Anonymous-

    I'm so sorry that you were so close to this tragedy, but I'm thankful that you weren't at work. I'll continue to keep you (and the entire tragedy) in my prayers. I can't imagine how hard this time must be for everyone close to what happened...

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