I’d like to say something hopeful about the state of the world, but this apparently isn’t the week for it. Not to dismiss the daily bombings in “hot spots” like Israel and Iraq, but London? That’s different. That gets the world’s attention, which I guess is the point, although if there is a message someone is trying to send by spreading horror around the globe, it’s not being received in the spirit in which it is given. You can’t make us love you by killing our brothers and sisters. You can’t really make us fear you.

There’s simply no common ground. Neither side can make sense of the other, and even if we try to communicate, we lack the vocabulary and the grammar and the mindset to penetrate the thought processes that lead us to this kind of chaos. As much as we call mass murder of civilians “senseless,” it doesn’t stop them from doing it. It’s as if they think that if they keep doing it, eventually we’ll “get it.” Or we’ll go away. Wrong on both counts, but what good does it do to say that? The words mean nothing, and the world view behind them means even less to the killers.

You’d think that terrorism, because it’s a deliberate act by humans against each other, would be somehow easier to control than the destruction of the environment, which is more of a side effect of human greed and neglect, or famine, which is a by-product of too many people occupying to little space. You might think that, if you hadn’t lived on this planet for the last five years. We don’t even know how to define the problem, so how can we possibly solve it? In a way, it seems more of an act of nature than a hurricane, at least in scope and duration and relentlessness.

We can only define it for ourselves. We can’t tell Them how We see it, but we can tell each other and find comfort in the way it brings us together and makes us ever more determined to resist and endure. That’s no comfort to those who have lost limbs and lives and loved ones, but there’s nothing we can do to bring back what is lost. What we can do is offer sympathy, and a realization such things will continue to occur until we do come together. There’s an element of hope in that thought, as dim as it seems on a day like this.