Ralf Weiser's Blog – Shake Up Your Snow Globe! ©

The human wheeble concept – We may be down, but we are never out

The human wheeble concept – We may be down, but we are never out 

Columbine, 9/11, V-tech, Aurora, Newtown, and now Boston (and many more that I have not mentioned here) – innocent people have become victim to shooting rampages and acts of terror over and over. Isn’t it unfathomable what we humans are willing to do to one another? Though we may feel like crying and giving up, we have to have the resolve to go on and doing the right things anyway.

There is no sense to be had and events like this easily make way for hatred and fear. There is hope for us though. In the aftermath immediately after the Boston bombings we could see the true color of our society. I call it the Human Wheeble Concept: We may be down, but we will never be out.

First of all, right after the bombs when off quite a few marathon runners tried to keep on going. Does that not mean that most people felt safe enough to move on and that this was an unusual and unexpected event? Had there been the notion that this could happen any day, people would have sought cover right away. Fear will not reign us in.

Spirituality, love, collaboration, and inclusion prevailed on site. We will have to courage to go on and making a difference. Sometimes it takes really nasty issues to let us come together and thus letting us realize that the really good comes out when the bad and ugly happens. We will persevere and may common sense and our sense of community and humanity prevail.

Little does it do when trying to come to terms with the senseless loss of lives and the injured though. While we will be full of hope and resolve, it still will take a long time making sense of what happened. Whoever the transgressors are, let’s not let them win. Much like a wheeble we will come up again, dust ourselves off, and follow fulfilling our purpose regardless. We have done it before and we shall do it again. In the meantime let’s pray for the victims and our leaders to do the right thing.

Ralf

PS: Based on a previous post here is a way dealing with grief and loss. It is the most important thing we will need to focus on. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a fantastic book about this topic: “When bad things happen to good people”. I recommend it highly for anyone to read and taking it to heart. It offers consolation at times of great sorrow. His then three year old son had been diagnosed with a degenerative disease that he was not expected to survive above and beyond his teens.

Another favorite author of mine about grieving is Elisabeth Kübler Ross. She penned “On grief and grieving: Finding the meaning of grief through the five stages of loss”. In it she describes the five stages of dealing with loss. They are (in no particular order): Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.