I’ve somewhat of a muddled head this afternoon so I’ll try and stay on track, and keep it a little shorter than the last couple.

So, I’ve been reading about the days happenings in Indonesia this afternoon. I’m frustrated with my own inability to be able to understand what goes through the mind of someone that decides to bomb a hotel and kill innocent people. There are many crimes in the world that, whilst not being “right”, one can understand.  The would-be-Buddhist in me wants to sit down with these attackers and hear their story, understand their anger/grief/obsession or whatever it is that drives them to do what they do.

I wonder if one actually took the time to listen to their side whether it would make any more sense. To my mind killing is killing, there is no reason that could make it excusable, but I really would like to understand. Maybe if we all had the capacity to understand and the empathy to compromise these things could be avoided. I’d like to believe as a society we haven’t yet crossed the bridge into complete racial and religious intolerance. Maybe I’m wrong.

From our warm(ish) living rooms in Australia, or any other civilized western nation, it’s easy to detach ones self from the horror that goes on in foreign countries. It’s almost as if the suffering isn’t real. We see the faces of the victims and their devastated families but the newscast is so short, we have no time to truly connect… and what’s more, we were only watching to check the weather forecast, the cricket is on tonight, the kids have homework, “did you pay the phone bill?”…there are many things more present than the suffering of someone in a foreign land.

My concern this evening is my own ability to be able to focus on two worlds simultaneously without becoming so involved in either that the other is now foreign. When you immerse yourself as I have in reading about the abuse and neglect of children in Indonesia, in order to understand the environment into which we are moving… when you take the time to actually ponder the concept of living on $2 per day… life as we know it starts to appear particularly frivolous.

My five-year-old daughter lost her second baby tooth a couple of days ago. She proudly placed her tooth in a glass of water as her offering to the tooth fairy, who in turn replaced it with a shiny gold $2 coin. I found myself looking at the coin quantifying it in Indonesian terms – a whole day of food, clothing, shelter and living. Suddenly something as exciting and filled with wonderment as a visit from the tooth fairy is tarnished by my focus on those less fortunate.

I went through a photo essay that documents the homeless children in Jakarta yesterday. The pictures are incredibly moving when you take the time to connect and project those children, especially as if they were one of your own. I left the computer in tears at the realisation that there’s no way I can save all of these children and there will be days where I have to turn children away. I wonder how I will manage these days?

These children are easy to ignore from Australia. If you don’t focus on them, to your mind they simply don’t exist.

 If we choose to look away from the darkness, there will never be any light. If we decide to shine a light into darkness, we must expect the impression to be burnt into our brains. I wonder how long it takes one’s eyes to adjust, and to be able to see evenly in both light and dark, without being consumed by either?

Until next time, be good to yourselves and to your earth.