The end of the world
Well, so much for the Mayan doomsday 12/21/12. I actually had a friend who was concerned that our planet would really experience some sort of calamity yesterday. But, hey, we're still here.
It seems to me that we Americans experienced the end of the world on 12/14/12, not 12/21/12, when 20 six and seven year old children and six adults who tried to save them were gunned down by a 20-year-old with a semi-automatic weapon stolen from his mother, whom he also killed. It's all just too much - 1999 Columbine (15 dead, 24 injured), 2006 Pennsylvania Amish schoolgirls (6 dead, 5 injured), 2007 Virginia Tech (33 dead, 25 injured), 2009 Ft. Hood (13 dead, 30 injured), 2009 Geneva County Alabama (10 dead), 2011 Congresswoman Gabby Giffords Arizona campaign stop (6 dead, 14 injured), 2012 Aurora Colorado movie theater (12 dead, 58 injured ), 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple (6 dead), 2012 Seattle Cafe Racer (6 dead), and now Newtown, Connecticut (27 dead). There are more mass killings but why go on with it.
It seems to me that we Americans experienced the end of the world on 12/14/12, not 12/21/12, when 20 six and seven year old children and six adults who tried to save them were gunned down by a 20-year-old with a semi-automatic weapon stolen from his mother, whom he also killed. It's all just too much - 1999 Columbine (15 dead, 24 injured), 2006 Pennsylvania Amish schoolgirls (6 dead, 5 injured), 2007 Virginia Tech (33 dead, 25 injured), 2009 Ft. Hood (13 dead, 30 injured), 2009 Geneva County Alabama (10 dead), 2011 Congresswoman Gabby Giffords Arizona campaign stop (6 dead, 14 injured), 2012 Aurora Colorado movie theater (12 dead, 58 injured ), 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple (6 dead), 2012 Seattle Cafe Racer (6 dead), and now Newtown, Connecticut (27 dead). There are more mass killings but why go on with it.
I have decided, in honor of the new Mayan year or cycle, that I'm not going to dwell on the negative. I might mention it in passing but there's no gain in getting down in the muck and staying there. Earlier this week, NBC's Ann Curry tweeted about what people can do in wake of the Newtown killings - people like me who feel lost in the aftermath of this horrendous tragedy. She offered a solution - do 20 acts of kindness to honor each child lost in the Newtown massacre. Respondents took to the idea and expanded it to 26 acts of kindness to also honor the teachers and administrators who died trying to protect the children at Sandy Hook Elementary. That is so much more in line with what many people believe to be the new world order, if you will, that the end of the Mayan calendar heralds. A world where we think about others before ourselves, become the stewards (instead of the destroyers) of our planet, find our spirits to be free from artificial rules that hammer our intuitive and creative capacities. It will take awhile (witness all the people buying semi-automatic weapons to stash away in their homes because Congress is talking about banning assault weapons), but there are enough human beings on this planet who have the foresightedness to be aware that we can create a better destiny for our planet and for our own humanity.
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