Down the Rabbit Hole

A Day in Contrast - November 18th

Blogging Circle of Friends
DAY 1099: November 18, 2015
Several governors want to reject Syrian refugees. Should we reject refugees who are fleeing the terrorist in their homeland?

Social media is filled to the brim with people advocating from both sides of the fence on this issue. I have seen posts that are heartbreaking, and ones that are merely there to incite and spread ill-will and still others that seek to remove the politics and shift focus to the human issue. I have concerns myself. Our nation was built by the hands, blood, sweat and tears of immigrants. My own family settled here as immigrants. We are at our core, a nation of nations united as Americas. However, today is a much different world that that our of great grandfathers. We have many ills that plague us right here at home. We have hundreds of homeless veterans, children living in poverty and on our streets, we have civil unrest and prejudices that divide our communities. Do those things get the same attention? The same funding? The same cause for concern?

The humanitarian in me sees the images of the refugees, the children with their shell-shocked eyes, and the mothers clutching infants to their bodies, the desperate bodies packed into rafts and the corpses in the surf, and I am heartbroken. These people are fleeing terror and evil. These parents risking everything to protect their children, it isn't political, its a humanizing. At the same time, there are real and present dangers lurking. Will terrorists slip into our cities and towns amid the tide of refugees? Possibly. Do we use that possibility as a means to ignore the ideals that built our nation? There are terrorist living among us in our communities now. There are hundreds more young men with mental health issues who are isolated and at risk for being recruited by extremists already living among us. Where is the plan for identifying those individuals? Where at the steps to protect our towns and families from them?

Each time I look at this issue, I only come up with more questions. The truth is, I don't know. I think we need to focus more resources on what is ailing us internally as a nation but I also think we shouldn't forget the human costs, the human questions...the humanity that binds us all together.


Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise
Day 622 November 18, 2015
Prompt: What moment in time from last year, 2014, would you like to relive?

2014 was filled with many difficult and wonderful moments. It is hard to isolate just one. I guess I would have to pick one moment from our trip with my daughter and her grandparents to Block Island. We spent the weekend on the boat in a marina there that was adjacent to a small beach. The whole weekend was wonderful but our first afternoon there, my daughter discovered the beach. The sun was sinking and we had the place to ourselves. She was jumping along through the tide pools, searching for shells and treasures with her Dad. I was sitting in the warm sun, watching them from a little distance. My daughter looked so happy, so at peace with the place. Her smile was broad and her eyes were full of excitement. Her excursion was simple but she was fully committed and all in, running in and out of the gentle surf and laughing with her Dad. It was a the kind of sweet moment you wish could go on and on.