". . . Unhealthy For Children And Other Living Things"

Who knew, at the start of Lent, that we'd all be seeing this spectacle being played out at Easter? Forty days ago, I'd pointed out the suggestion from Pax Christi to not just give up something, but to give some thought to peace. Turns out that peace is still elusive here at home, in addition to around the world. Their thoughts for world peace may be just as applicable to the need for healing here:

Give us the strength it takes
to listen rather than to judge,
to trust rather than to fear,
to try again and again
to make peace even when peace eludes us.

I think that one thing which has been lacking is perspective. Ono Ekeh had some thoughts earlier in the week, related to that point:

Again, thousands of these cases occur each year in which a family member decides to pull the plug on a family member in a vegetative state. I am baffled why, if this is such a pro-life issue, why not then go to the crux of the matter and push for legislation on all such cases? Because they know that first of all, it is not the will of the people and secondly there is no basis to do that. But then, it really isn't about a pro-life reading on all such cases, is it? It is about this particular case because a point can be made in this case.

There are thousands of children, innocent children who have died in the Iraq war in the most horrible ways you can think as parents in despair watched helplessly. Many have died slowly in carpet bombings, in sicknesses, diseases, etc. Even if the conservatives don't like the adult Iraqis who deserve it, I'm sure they'd have some compassion to spare for the children? Or is out of sight, out of mind? Why expend all this energy on Terri Schiavo, who did not wish to be kept alive, but be unmoved by the horror of the plight of Iraqi kids dying slowly in this war? There is something so disproportionately out of whack in all of this. It simply doesn't make any sense.

We can still hope for some way to add some sense to the political process.