Lamentations for All Our Lost Boys

One of the illusions of our lives, especially our online lives is that the world is cheery and wonderful and bright. That we all have “futures so bright, we have to wear shades.” We enter our chat rooms and our hang-outs, where we are all of one mind and heart. We speak diversity and welcome all with open arms. We stand together as we chant our online mantras of peace and unity and “SoMe has no ROI.” And all is right with the world until…

Until the outside world crowds into our little existence here.

A cyber-friend sent me a link to an article last week, that I've been thinking about for the last few days. The article is:

Hate Crime: 19-Year Old Kicked, Beaten To Death As Anti-Gay Slurs Hurled by David Badash on August 22, 2011 in "Bigotry Watch, Discrimination, Hate Crimes, News"

The sadness this story evokes is multi-leveled and muti-layered. Once I could take a deep breath again, I tried to decide what's the saddest part of this story.

Is is that a young boy seemingly, full of potential has lost his life for no apparent reason?

Is it that a young man cannot be gifted / (presumably) gay / black and survive in this world?

Is it that we have bred such a generation (not just the boys in this story) who would take a life for nought?

Is it that we have not progressed significantly since Cain and Abel (or cavemen, if you like) with the exception of our shiny toys?

Is it that the rest of us want to look away disgusted for the moment and pretend that nothing out of the ordinary has happened?

Is it that some of our hearts break and bleed, but we offer nothing more to the family of Marcellus Andrews or any of the other children we see “drowning” every day?

Is is that, like the commenters to the original post, we rail against the sky claiming that this is the fault of the politicians?

Is it that next week we will be consumed by and weeping over something else, and forget all about this? Don’t believe me? Tell me: What’s happening at the reactor in Japan today? What’s new in Haiti? How are the poor people in New Orleans faring?

What hurts the most?

What they do?

Or, what we do not do?

There will be a new pain tomorrow. A new crisis, a new hand-wringing heart-wrenching catastrophe will appear the next day.

And, I know this sounds trite, but: We are the hands and feet of Christ…

And, if you are in the group that doesn't like Christ OR the group that likes Christ and you don’t like gays or blacks or somebody else, We are still the hands and feet that need to get things done.

Help someone…

Do some thing…

There is no one else.