I tidy a drawer, sort out a cupboard, rearrange a shelf and I feel better. Always. But it is cosmetic. I cannot order the bigger things, the life things, the humanity things that threaten to topple our (or at least mine, can I ever speak for others?) sense of the world and what it is. His reading of the article in the paper by Gordon Brown last night was a case in point. Brown wrote about the effect that a second term of Trump would do, not only to America and its citizens, but the world as a whole. It made for frightening listening. And then there are the wars that continue, day-in-day-out, the one in Ukraine, the one in Gaza, Sudan. Such conflicts are ongoing and ongoing. So many people for whom that is all they have come to know. Can normal life ever happen for them again? Do they have an idle hour to tidy a drawer? Of course, not. Survival is all they think of. And then there was the tsunami and the floods here. Endless pain and struggle and misery. And then there is her. He texted him to say that she’s gone into hospital to help manage the pain. And then possibly the hospice. I think of them both hourly. Poor loves. Poor her. Poor him. And all her family who love her so dearly. That long goodbye is endless. I know there is goodness, I see it, I feel it. And good, good selfless people. Surely that evil encapsulated in this world’s tyrants can be ameloriated and tempered by such good. Surely.
