Saturday, December 15, 2012

A Safe Place

We were a small part of the celebration today for Sharifah and Hamza's daughter's graduation from her Masters course here in Launceston. On such an occasion, in the midst of lots of highly promising young people taking pause before plunging into futures that one prays will see the fruition of that promise, it was difficult to feel anything other than gently optimistic.

And then home to news of the killing of twenty children at their primary school in the States on a routine Friday morning, just days before the excitement of Christmas for them. The Australian commentators to a man, and woman, expressed bewilderment at the easy availability of guns in that benighted nation and wondered whether this appalling massacre would be the one to change things. With pessimistic confidence I'm afraid I'd have to say it won't.

It seems to me that our first and most important duty is to try and provide a world in which we can keep things ordinary enough for ordinary happiness to manifest itself in.

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