This week

This week

Last night we watched Interstellar. It is one of Al’s favourite movies, and holidays are made to revisit favourite movies. Things I watched in movies years ago are now a reality so movies that speak of unspeakable futures make me uneasy as they are a little less easy to dismiss as fiction.

In Interstellar, the world is on the point of collapse. Mankind has destroyed the world, and it is turning into a dust bowl. The race is on to either find an alternative planet or to launch space stations capable of sustaining life.

Dr Mann and Cooper are having an argument about humanity when Dr Mann tells him, “Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier. We can care deeply - selflessly - about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight.”

This line stuck with me all night and this morning along the windy coastline because it is what I have been pondering relentlessly this year. I truly believe that that lack of empathy that Dr Mann talked about is one of the most destructive forces known to mankind. If the world is going to be destroyed by anything, it will be that. In the meantime, it allows the previously unimaginable to happen on our watch whilst we close our eyes and say it doesn’t apply to me.

This week

This week

I listened to a young girl suffocate to death under the rubble of Gaza

while a kindly medic held her tiny hand, the only part of her exposed.

This week

objects used by civilians were weaponised, (illegal according to the UN and Geneva Conventions)

and Western Media likened this act to the stories of James Bond and called it ingenious.

This week

I saw a truck being delivered to Gaza containing 80 decomposing bodies

no origin, no history, no names, by a horrific entity that no longer needs to hide.

This week

A genocidal regime bombed residential areas of Lebanon using tried and tested lies

of weapons placed in schools and hospitals killing more than 700 people, 50 of them children

This week

a monster was allowed to speak at an organisation

that was created to protect world peace and human rights.

This week

I prayed for my children that they will be brave enough, and strong enough

to live kindly in a world where humanity has failed.

This week.