Look Around You
By Richard Messer

 
We live in a world of our own making, say the wise ones, and they
suggest we can extricate ourselves and become new persons, or at least
happier. The young neo-relativists tell us to realize we are constructed
by our biology and three thousand years of patriarchy and advise owning
up to one's prejudices while maintaining one's idealism.
Just keep busy, say the old wives. Does anyone escape?
No, that is why those who survive and go on to thrive, reach out to those who are for the present victims. Tragedy teaches what intuition always whispers: there is a realm in which we are all present to each other, we are one in the deep heart's core. We mourn for those who die and we move on in the knowledge that what has happened to
them, no matter how brutal or tragic, does not define them-- or us, our spirits and our soul's tell us who we are and give our lives their meaning.
Look around you.

Previously published by Bottom Dog Press in Messer's book Murder In The Family

 

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