This Hard Week

This is a simple post because there is nothing that I can add to all that has been said this week. It's been a sad week and a hard week. In my personal everyday life, things are fine, but some of the events of this past week have been on my mind a lot. I am not naive though. I know that horrible things are happening all over the world every single day and I don't overlook them at all. And if I tried to write about all of those terrible things I would never be away from this keyboard. This blog has never really had a heavy tone to it and it's by design. I am not a blogger who can write well about things like that because frankly I might go off way too much. It's good to speak one's mind and I do that in my life more and more as I mature, but I try to keep heavy things at a minimum here. Believe me, this is not a cop out and I am not afraid, but I know that writing about things like this are not my strength. Plus, there are MANY people who are excellent at tackling heavier issues in their writing and I've read a lot of that this week. We all have our roles and I know mine at this point in my life. There may be a day when I can funnel my turmoil about the heavier things into my writing, but this is not the place. That time will come.



I'm gonna finally get to the point of this post now. I'm just writing what's been on my heart this week.

So the first sad thing from this week was the passing of Robin Williams. As I said earlier, there have been so many great tributes written about this truly gifted man this week, so all I'll say is I will miss him being in this world. Like mostly everyone else, I never met him, but through his creativity I feel like he left a tiny part of himself within every role that he played.

God rest his soul...

***

The other sadness of this week has been watching all that is going on in Ferguson, Missouri. I just can't settle it in my mind that the police had military machinery directed at citizens like that. The vast majority of the people are trying to protest...which is within their rights as citizens. It's maddening to see the news coverage of events there. It's as if they are more interested in making this about the clashes than concentrating on WHY people are protesting. And it is chilling to me that the coverage has seemed not really concerned with the fact that there have been tanks and machine guns trained on scores of people in the heart of our country as if it's a war zone. The emphasis with the coverage has been WAY off!

I pray for my country and for the world. My heart is really heavy over this week. I have recited this bible verse to myself more than a few times this week.

'weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning'.

Psalm 30:5

Update: August 17, 2014 - Yesterday an acquaintance on Twitter from here in the UK messaged me about all that's going on in Ferguson and she said, "Aren't you glad that we don't have riots or racial issues here?" I was kind as I reminded her of the riots of 2011. She said that she'd forgotten. It made me think of my own experiences in both places and sadly they haven't been that different. I've been followed around stores many times in both England and the USA because they thought that I wanted to steal something. I've had bigoted things said to me in both places. Just yesterday for the umpteenth time I passed by a woman who clutched her purse ever so tightly when I passed by as if I wanted to take it from her. Really? Come on! I could go on and on, but I won't. As I said yesterday, I'm not going down that road here on my blog, but that doesn't mean that I'm hiding from the truth. I just choose to concentrate on making things better in my own way...concentrating on what is still good in our world, because there is still good. I say all of this to say...racism is not just a USA problem...it's a human cancer that is eating away from our souls daily. I pray for better days for us all.