Paris
There are no words. And yet we grasp for words to describe the horror and tragedy and loss that we all feel this week when someone says just the one word: Paris.
We know in our minds that such heartless, cruel violence against innocent people is possible, but in our hearts it is still inconceivable. We still struggle to make sense of such senseless evil. I hope it will always be a struggle to imagine the unimaginable.
Saturday, I was actually flying to Brussels for my first meeting as an officer of Education International when I looked up at the television in the airport tuned to CNN to see that security officers were arresting co-conspirators to the horrendous killings in Paris after raiding homes in Brussels. My mother called me panicked that I was going to a dangerous place and begging me to cancel the trip. I calmed her down by telling her I would be as safe in Brussels as anywhere.
It would have been more accurate to say I would be in as much danger in Brussels as anywhere. There is no place to hide from cowardly political murders of innocent bystanders, chosen specifically for their randomness. Paris was not safe. New York was not safe. Mumbai was not safe. Madrid was not safe. Oklahoma City was not safe. And so we will not hide and pretend we are safe.
We will stand. We will refuse to live in terror. We will hold each other as we hold our Parisian brothers and sisters in our hearts this week, but we will hold them in solidarity. Not in fear.
If there is no place that is safe, there is also no place that is not filled with courage and kindness. There is no corner on earth where we cannot find our brothers and sisters. They are our human family, and our family is grieving. Let us hold them in love.Paris - Lily's Blackboard: