This writer scans the news for actual facts and waits for the information to either contradict or confirm existing versions of what might be true. This morning of course, the headlines screamed WAR. And below that prospect were the news stories that were lined up to exist under a less demanding headline. Stories about the obliteration of USA Aid and the existential threat to food pantries across the US and finally even deterioration of the tomato market due to tariffs on the flavorful Mexican tomato. 

The bottom line is how can anyone be comfortable in this slow motion collapse of the familiar. The next level question is how can anyone with a conscience be comfortable? I suspect there is only one answer to that question. To be comfortable one must ignore the obvious, deny understanding, and recruit an authoritarian government to support the system of “not knowing”.

Good is knowing that no matter what justification one has for war, innocent civilians (men women children, elders, poets, priests, doctors, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers) are now the folks who die in this new warfare of lobbing bombs across fences until devastation is complete in the war zone. War has never been good, but in history we have recognized that at least in terms of defense, it has been occasionally necessary. World War II was one of those ultimately necessary responses. War can only be an abstraction to people comfortably outside the zone of war. Once an abstraction war, can even become indifferent requiring only more pleasing musical/comedies in a national entertainment industry to keep us distracted from the realities we must-not-know. 

Why is empathy under attack these days? The access to this most human of capacities afflicts comfort in a world reeling in the forces of self destruction. Good is knowing what can and must be known and avoiding the distraction of complacent certainty. No, that is not easy. Good is holding on to that third eye of humanity called empathy for the civilians caught up in the indifference of modern warfare. Good is Praying for Peace (PFP).