AbsurdBeats

Another mass killing.

Which mass killing? Syria? Aurora? Does it matter?

As so many others have noted, there will be tears and words and denunciations and defenses and what-ifs and what-nows and then nothing nothing nothing until another mass killing.

I have no answers; I’m not even sure of the questions.

But a killing is a diminution, always, even if the person killed is bad, even if a killing is necessary (as when someone kills another in self-defense); life is gone, the world is smaller.

That’s bad enough for those of us who are strangers; for those who knew the victims, their world is shredded, and for the victims, the world is gone. As that line from the Bhagavad Gita notes, I am become Death, shatterer of worlds.

And out of this, I think I finally, truly, understand that Talmudic saying: Whosoever saves a life, saves the world.

In our purposefulness and carelessness, we constantly shatter and save our world, and wonder at our sorrow and relief.