The Good We Can Do
Media saturation and outrage fatigue. That’s the kind of week it’s been.
There were so many stories — from all over the country and world in such terrible detail. There seemed nothing to do but watch as horror after horror unfolded. When was the last time I heard “Breaking: Good News?”
As summer draws near, we watched the U.S. Senate — including both of our senators — fail the victims of past and future gun massacres. On Patriot’s Day blood spilled on the streets of Boston, limbs lost, lives lost. We saw a deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, the victims literally vaporized under a mushroom cloud.
An Elvis impersonator is accused of sending poison to the president and a congressman — and it didn’t even make the front page.
We learned that pressure cookers aren’t just for canning salmon. The manhunt for heartless terrorists unfolded relentlessly, bit by bit, in our living rooms. It’s no wonder so many of the ads during the 24-hour cable news broadcasts are for anti-depressants, anti-depressant boosters, sleep aids and blood pressure medications. Maybe a news week like this can actually make you sick. I like to believe our brains are wired to feel empathy for our fellow humans in peril and pain and to help if we can. I dare say it’s our better nature.
So let’s remember the volunteer firefighters in Texas, well aware of the danger posed by a burning fertilizer plant, who stayed to help evacuate a home for the elderly.
Is that the opposite of terrorism? Selfless humanity? We see a lot less of that in the news. I wouldn’t mind a few more minutes of real heroes on TV rather than seemingly endless hours of speculation by people who went to high school with fanatical zealots whose grandest ambition was to kill children with bombs.
Growing up in Homer, I felt like there were a lot of horrible things that happened. I remember what houses burned down, whose parents got divorced, car wrecks, boats sinkings and grievous illnesses. Many of these surfaced as prayer requests during church services.
Pop Moore had a saying about most of these situations. “It’s not a problem — it’s just a situation that we have to find a solution for.”
When a house burned down, we went through our toys, books and clothes and packed a few boxes. Mom and Pop did the same.
We made casseroles and delivered them to grieving families. We showed up at funerals.
We went to spaghetti feeds and pie auctions for people who needed money for medical treatments. Once Pop bought a pie for $100 and donated it back — it sold again and he and the other bidder split the pie.
In those days, it seemed that bad news had a process — there were things to be done on a scale that people could handle. There seemed to be a balance.
I’m not sure we humans are built to consume the abundance of grief and pain, tears and fears brought to us from near and far by a vast media machine. But what can we do about it?
Without the ability to respond with individual action we become simple rubber-neckers at the misfortunes of others. It shouldn’t be enough just to be relieved that whatever is happening isn’t happening in our town.
I’m not proposing we unplug the giant media machine. I would never urge people to bury their heads and assume it’s all being taken care of. Often, we have only two meaningful ways to react: We can give money, or we can take our responsibilities as citizens a little more seriously — by voting and holding our leaders accountable — so may we prevent a tragedy. We can’t undo a killing explosion in Texas but we can push the people we elect to make sure we have smart zoning laws and money for safety inspections. That requires a focus and discipline that’s not as easy or as satisfying as baking a pie.
Maybe it’s a simple as trying to balance the bad we know is out there with the good we can do right now. Like picking up the trash that someone else tossed, volunteering at the soup kitchen or sorting extra clothes into boxes for the needy. Maybe many small acts of GOOD, efforts that don’t really take much effort, are better for us than anti-depressants, sleep aids and blood pressure meds.
The night of the Boston bombing, New York City lit a message for Boston. It was a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
Dr. King went on to say, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
[This article is cross-posted at The Anchorage Daily News.]
Let’s try it this way- The sky is falling,the sky is falling!!
http://farmrescue.org/
Saw an advertisement for this organization today. Never knew it existed, Talk about volunteers and random acts of kindness,seems to all be here.
WOW! Words fail me at the magnitude of what this org does. Thanks for sharing, mike from iowa. beth,
In small town iowa you can read about random acts of kindness nearly every day. Local,independently owned newspapers are full of these stories. Neighbors are there for their neighbors if a farmer gets injured or worse. Whole communities pitch in to harvest crops,build or renovate homes,make sure the afflicted family has all the creature comforts necessary. I read once that a neighbor was defined as anyone,anywhere in need.
Would that we could ignore or tune out all the violence of big cities,but the truth is the violence affects us all,every day,in some manner. In these small towns we depend on each other for nearly everything,but most of all the closeness and camraderie of the human spirit that makes us what we are. As the only person on this square mile section of land,I don’t feel alone or isolated. Friends and neighbors are but a phone call away. Maybe we need more small towns and less big cities
Shannyn, I wish I could have known your dad. What a good and great man he was. It’s easy to see where some of your strength comes from.
I saved this commentary that appeared early last week on the Facebook page of a comedian named Patton Oswalt. I’d like to share it with you, although I probably need to edit one word. Otherwise, here’s the rest of it:
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Written by Patton Oswalt, Comedian
https://www.facebook.com/pattonoswalt?fref=ts
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Boston. F…..g horrible.
I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, “Well, I’ve had it with humanity.”
But I was wrong. I don’t know what’s going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.
But here’s what I DO know. If it’s one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointed towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”
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Amen. The good people outnumber the bad, and always will. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that, but we need to, each and every time we are overwhelmed with another story of evil in this world.
Thanks for this, Shannyn. Pop Moore sounds like a gem.
“I’d like to believe our brains are wired to feel empathy for our fellow humans in peril and pain and to help if we can.I dare say its our better nature.” You haven’t been paying attention to rw radio and/or nutjob politicians,have you? Everyday it seems some moron has to open their mouths and remind us all how utterly selfish and crass they and their god is. iowa is filled with mean-spirited,bigotted little god-all-mighty pissants whose only sympathies(and loyalties) belong to the well off. As bad as I find reading everyday about these cretins,it must be far worse writing about and dealing with them. Your nose should be nominated for a Pullitzer Prize and several purple hearts for all the flak you run through. I certainly admire you and Jeanne and LKB for the excellent works you produce,but I rilly have to wonder whether you are closet masochists.
If I had to daily digest all of the ‘local’ politics crap and make some sort of sense of it so it could shared with some sense of coherency, I’d end up as an inconsolable blubbering heap in the corner — I don’t have the strength (physically, emotionally, or mentally) for the insanity and injustice of it all. I, too, admire Shannyn, Jeanne, and Linda…without them, well, I’d just be an inconsolable blubbering heap in the corner. beth.
Good people will always outnumber the evil. Acts of charity and kindness will always outnumber acts of cruelty and horror. When reading bad news about our legislature, terrorist acts, natural catastrophe, and man-made catastrophe, we need to keep track and spend an equal amount of time focusing on the good news, or the good things in our life, or doing something kind for another.