Restlessness

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is bombed,
Boko Haram decimates a town of 2000,
Over 141 people are killed in a Pakistani school,
Charlie Hebdo, and hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris,
Freedom of speech... freedom of speech... freedom of speech...

Freedom from harm
Freedom from fear
Freedom from want
Freedom from hatred
Freedom from oppression
Freedom from violence

The world is getting safer, on aggregate, I hear

The human person is not used to witnessing such a dizzying array of diverse acts of violence

amidst the stunning statistical view of aggregated decrease in violence globally

What are my responsibilities in a precarious peacetime?

"Interfaith dialogue" is a world of possibility

where meaning-making systems seek to find common ground, build bridges

"The best way not to be homophobic is to know a gay person."

... and to regularly interact with the "Other".

Not only the Other as neighbour,

but Other as friend.

To challenge one another, cry one another,

betray one another, and yet to be redeemed by one another,

to forgive one another

to forgive one another

to forgive one another.

A lightbulb bursts in my house and it takes me a full week to buy another, my higher priorities to keep up with the flow of obsessions on social media.

My pillows do not support my breathing at night, and it takes me several months to buy better ones, my higher priorities to keep my eyes opened to digitised flat screens, distracting myself from sleep with games and news and entertainment

Death is inevitable, whether by heart attack, a withering away of the body from age, or from rockets launched into my home from some imperialist cancer.

I find myself afraid of being called

to something more heroic of my abilities.

What blocks me is the 

unfinished violence of my own family legacy

that no amount of good politics will save me from.

I am still a teenager with nightmares of a middle class psychodrama

Hyper-privileged, yet still,

an Everyfamily,

patriarchy does not die even after he is heartbroken.

Revenge is androgynous.

Revenge is multicultural.

Revenge is transnational.

Revenge spans generations, all directions from ancestry to progeny

The stars still twinkle, even though light years closer to their source

we know that they have mostly been

entirely spent of their grandeur.

What if what we see of the universe of one another's potential, may be as the light of stars...?

A glimmer of something already quite, quite gone.?