This one has really been making me think, guys. Things like this, albeit generally on a lesser scale, happen all the time on the other side of the world. There are natural disasters, and wars, famine AIDS.....the horror and the bodies piled equally high. There are people all over the world who can reasonably expect to lose at least one child to violence or disaster before that child reaches the age of five. But not me. Not you. I can reasonably expect to see my children grow to adulthood, and die in a hospital after recieving the best medical care, surrounded by fat grandchildren. Yes, it makes me count my blessings. Yes it makes every paltry misfortune I will ever suffer seem silly and inconsequential when held up against such a vast tragedy. I'm caught between feeling lucky to live where I do, and be as blessed as I am, and glad, yes, so glad, that it's not me and mine. That those little sheet covered bodies are none of mine. I'm grateful beyond words. But at the same time, I'm so incredibly guilty.
I feel guilty for feeling grateful that my family are safe. I feel guilty that my family will probably always be safe from these sorts of things. And I feel guilty that I wouldn't trade places with the victims in a million years. It just seems so cataclysmically unfair! What did those people ever do to deserve a disaster like this? What did we ever do to never have to face a disaster like this? Why is some of the world constantly living in a storm of grief, opression, and terror, and the worst thing some of us have to worry about is not being able to make the payments on our SUV's on time?
I know these are questions that don't have answers. I don't expect answers to these. What I want to know is how do you deal with it? Whenever I've asked questions like these of religious leaders in the past, I have usually gotten a variation on the same answer: God works in mysterious ways....we can't know His plan.....this should make you count your blessings, and humble you before the grace of God that you are safe from these things......yadda yadda yadda.....
And of course they're right, whether you believe in God or not (and I am so not trying to start another religious debate in here....) what they all mean is the same thing: we don't know. There is no answer for your question, be grateful it wasn't you.
For most people, this seems to be a workable response. In the face of an enormous tragedy, we lift our heads, take notice, feel bad, feel glad it's not us, send some money, and go back to sleep. In the face of the enormous suffering that drives merrily along without the aid of mother nature every single day, we rarely wake up at all....
So how do you stand it? Knowing that really, there's nothing you can do to help. You can donate money. You can join a cause, fight a fight - if you have any attention to spare from trying to keep your own life, and those you're responsible for from falling off the wire. (Very few of us can be a Furls....
) But even the Furls's of the world (I hope you don't mind me using you as an example Furls, you're the most heroic person I know 
) have to go to sleep in their safe houses every night knowing that tonight while we sleep, x number of innocents across the globe will die some miserable death simply because of the random chance (or will of God, if you prefer that) of being born on the wrong continent. And it could so easily have been reversed......
This is the world we live in. If we think about it all the time it will drive us crazy, so we wall it off, push it to the back of our minds. And most of us manage to go for quite a long time between reminders of the others in the world. The dusty ones, the skinny little ones with the bloated bellies. The bloody ones. The ones covered with sheets in the street. These things are hurtful, and there's only so much we can take......knowing that even if we sent every dime we ever had to these people, it could never stop it all. It would be one tiny drop in a vast ocean of suffering. And we can't do even that - we have our own to look after. Our own children who are healthy, and beautiful, and just as innocent as the ones who are dying.
So to protect ourselves, we just don't think about it. We might make donations to various charities, but even when we're making out the check, we rarely allow our minds to dwell on the people it's going to. And is that enough? No. Never. But is it wrong? I don't think so. What else can we do? There's just too much. So much. Always.
So I'm not looking for reassurances about the meek inheriting the earth, or God's divine plan, or the end off all suffering at such and such appointed time. Not that I'm knocking it, or even disagreeing with it, it's just that I've heard it all before. (Although if you really must respond along those lines, I guess I don't really mind. Cold comfort is, after all, better than none.) I'm looking for guidance. Practical advice to help ease the pain of helplessness. How on earth do you deal with the guilt of being born lucky?
