Sad Lives Lost

The photographs of world leaders marching in Paris are decidedly odd I think. It must be very difficult to know just how to hit the right public note when tragedies happen. Prime Ministers link arms with Chancellors and they all look terribly uncomfortable but allied in their show of grief and support for the bereaved families: a truly dreadful situation! There can be no worse feeling than the loss of a close family member but I wonder if it helps to have a public outpouring of grief and 'solidarity'. People have to deal with it in their individual ways....like all kinds of death experience. Coming to terms with tragedy and destruction seems an odd concept....how is this possible? Can one ever come to terms with heart wrenching sadness or do we just get used to the pain it causes?
The amazing photograph used in an Israeli newspaper, where all the women leaders had been photoshopped out, is one of the most bizarre records. Why? I have absolutely no experience of ultra Orthodox Jews, who seem very different to me and my contemporaries. I find what little I've learned about them to be alien and hard to accept....but each to their own!

The overarching concern in my mind is how we come to be in the situation where a few young chaps, with everything to live for, throw away their lives along with other totally innocent lives, in the name of a god who, to all intents and purposes, wants these poor souls to kill in his name. Apart from the promise of a few virgins in the after life, there seems to be no rhyme or reason. And...if they are dead how are they going to be able to deflower the poor virgins?...and then what? Not a lot of logic here...to my mind. Perhaps I'm missing a vital ingredient of this mess...perhaps if I believed in a god it would be easier.

I have a friend who has had two years of serious illness. She is very well just now and has an amazing attitude to life. It's so precious and she wants to experience new things, enjoy old things....including her husband, family and friends, and be happy sharing and caring. These young boys in France can have no conception of these ideas...and I want to cry for them and the waste of all their lives. Zealots for a cause which overrides all other considerations....maybe this gives a point to existence but we really don't need a point or a reason to be here....we just are.

So back to mundane tasks and petty concerns.....back to deciding what to eat and when to do the laundry. I might build a snowman tomorrow if the snow stays....