Obscenity

The thing I struggle with - the thing that today is hard to take - is that life just goes on.  Last night I mowed the lawn, and watched the Bake Off, and children died crossing the sea.  Today I will sit in the office, and sort out my spreadsheets, and children will die.  Isn't it obscene that we all just carry on?  Isn't it appalling that we get on with our lives?

I mean, what is that about?

Of course it has to be that way.  Of course it does.  The show must go on.  But maybe, just maybe, every now and again, the show can just stop.  Stop and acknowledge that everything is really, seriously messed up.

There are practical things we can do - and goodness knows I need to do more.  I genuinely worry that one day I will hear a voice say 'son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while this little boy washed up dead on the beach'.  Yes, there is stuff I need to do.

But what I really want to do is just make everyone stop.  Because the juxtaposition of ordinary life and horrific suffering is more than I can bear.  Please, can't we just stop?  Can't we all see the obscenity of it all?

So here is one thing I will do.  On this coming Monday, I will fast and mourn and pray - because we should, shouldn't we?  Of course, life will go on, but I will do something to mark what is happening, and I will repent of my part in it, and pray for change.  I will fast, because enjoying good things right now seems obscene to me.  Ordinarily that's something I would do in private, but maybe - perhaps - you feel the need to stop as well, and you'd like to join me.

Now, as a final thought, imagine this post liberally scattered with expletives.  That's how I wrote it, and how I read it back to myself now in my head.  But I deleted them all so as not to offend sensitive readers.  And isn't that just obscene as well?