Immune to Tragedy

As the world keeps turning I wonder if we have become immune to tragedy? Have we lost our ability to grapple with the reality that the world is changing and not for the better? This is a difficult truth for most to embrace because the prospect of the inevitability of goodness to win out seems to be continuously injected into the American bloodstream. This hollow optimism allows for us to rationalize tragedies of Aurora and now Wisconsin as blips on the path to continued human progress. The truth is these tragedies are not blips, and when we trivialize the lost of life, or when we refuse to wrestle with the larger questions humanity suffers. When we think that our job is done with status updates or  clicking the like button on trending articles, the possibility to truly learn and be transformed by tragedy is lost. We must do more. We must challenge a culture that continually diminishes the value of human life. We cannot simply choose to move on. The time is now to stop, and grieve for the lost life, and to also grieve for ourselves, if we cannot recognize that something more than our condolences is needed.