Outside my window the sun shines occasionally, the clouds appear and disappear sometimes dropping rain but all is calm.  A calmness that feels so at odds with what is happening in the rest of the world right now.  Where I live has always made me feel separate from what is going on in the rest of my own country let alone the world, now it feels even more remote.

I am feeling the full gamut of emotions from disbelief to anxiety and everything in between.  How is is possible that a life is so little valued, that persons in authority, who are there to protect, can cause so much harm to so many.  What does the future hold for us all now, it really needs to be a place where everyone feels safe, feels heard and has a voice.  Is this possible?

I am thinking that it really needs to be ok to take time to process events that seem so utterly dreadful that we don't want them to be real.  If we look like we are carrying on as normal, maybe that is what we need to do as part of our processing.  We need to pause to be at our best, to deepen our attention so that we can respond wisely and allow us to get in touch with how we feel about what we see, hear and read.

I am wondering why it is that some people feel the need to point fingers, to bring to attention issues that are detracting from those that are most important.  I am also wondering what will end this.

I am pondering two quotes I have heard this week 'the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth', part of our village, our community is hurting if responding to this is optional does that make us complicit?  The second is Martin Luther King, 'riot is the language of the unheard'.

I am listening to many Podcasts to help me make sense of what I have seen and read and my reactions to that.

I am reading, slowly, as much content as I can online.  I want to understand why we find ourselves in this place and to be part of the process to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

I am learning that my ideals of believing that we have a duty to educate the next generation does not work if the beliefs are that of entrenched superiority.  This is not my fault, but I am complicit and now I can wake up and respond.  I need to be willing to be open about how I feel right now.

I am hoping to be a compassionate witness, to speak out, to be an advocate.