After a brief middle-of-the-night rain shower that had washed trees and shrubs around our neighborhood clean of accumulated summer dust, I woke up to find our Mission Valley sky tented at the eastern edge by a smooth retreating layer of gray that was being chased away by bright scattered clouds that we rarely see above San Diego… Then while I ate breakfast and listened to morning news on the radio, I heard that on the other side of the world yesterday ISIS terrorists had brutally captured and executed another 50 men, women and children of the U.S.-allied Albu Nimr tribe in Iraq’s western desert. 

A couple of hours later under the cheerful California sky I was greeted by three of my favorite friends, Sophie, Piper, and their dad Karl. For the time that I was with them I forgot about the horrific circumstances children face under the skies of the Middle East and Eastern Europe and Africa… but I don’t want to allow myself to forget, and I hope other responsible people will remember… and remembering, we must altogether support efforts to alleviate suffering wherever and on whomever it falls.  I should like to believe that evil in the world is not imposed by supernatural forces. I refuse to believe that a “good” supernatural force allows evil and the suffering it causes to happen as punishment for not having an appropriate religious attitude or set of rituals.  That simply doesn’t make sense. Some suffering is clearly imposed by wrongheaded, ignorant people like the ISIS criminals who claim to be doing the bidding of a god.  Ebola induced suffering is caused by a virus.  People suffer when earthquakes and floods and other natural disasters happen.  

So, my Sunday musings leave me frustrated… fully aware that suffering will continue to be a persistent factor in the human condition. The only responsible thing I can do is to try to avoid being the cause of suffering for anybody… and to join others who are committed to addressing the problems of suffering... people like Margaret and Kathee and Nan.