Hope in the Darkness

Sadly, I opened my news feed this morning to find this Huffington Post article about a young teenager who took her own life after being viscously taunted, teased, and bullied by her peers.  And it reminded me of what is fast becoming countless numbers of homosexual teens taking their lives because of bullying.  And it’s all very overwhelming because it’s hard to find answers to these problems.  It seems impossible to find answers to these problems.

Obviously the problems facing teens are tougher than ones we faced as kids because they live in two worlds – the physical world and the virtual world – and they are not able to separate the two nor are they able to ever truly get away from the taunting when it can so easily follow them home and is as close as their laptop monitor or their smart phone screen.

Perhaps I’m like most, when I sit here and try to think of solutions to some of these problems – bullying, hunger, homelessness, abuse.  There has to be an answer.  There has to be some place to get some money to help some people; there has to be some consequences that will stop all of this abuse.  And yes, there are people who have the wherewithal who are willing to help those in need, but more need will just pop up elsewhere because the problem isn’t need and it isn’t lack of funding and it actually isn’t a lack of compassion or care.

The suffering in the world is caused by broken people living in a broken world, people who can’t mend their hearts; people who aren’t willing to see into the hearts of others.  And that, quite simply, cannot be changed because we aren’t in a position to heal hearts.  We can help and we can point the way, one by one, but widespread callousness can’t be overcome except on the small scale in our own hearts.

So when I see someone on the news being injured or abused or I see people in my own life being mistreated or mistreating others, I have to remember that the only hope we all have is the hope that we can be different, we can make a difference to ourselves and those in our immediate circles.

I can’t heal your heart, but I can heal my own, and I can hope that others can see that healing and can then in turn fix that which is broken within them.  It’s an odd sort of paying it forward where we try to make things better by being better ourselves, by working on ourselves.

I simply cannot stop kids from using hateful language against each other, but I can make damn sure I don’t use it myself and that my kids learn from me to respect others and act with empathy.  And they in turn will live that out and teach it to others.  And they will come across kids who grew up with hate and who will in turn hate, and all I will be able to stay to them is to shine your own light.  Be your own guide.  Let your life stand for hope.