I had a different post planned for this week, but the atrocities in Paris, Beirut, and Baghdad, as well as the Syrian refugee crisis demand a response. This is mine:

Violence is always a negative. Hatred is always a negative. Most of the peoples of this world–Black, Brown, White, Yellow, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists–are good, want peace, treasure their children, value life. We are all depending on the kindness of strangers.

 

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee. 

John Donne