the bad news and the good news

my heart is breaking... and i don't know how to repair it.

i have a toolbox full of tools which have served me well (when i use them). they are helpful when i forget who i am, when i take things personally, when i forget to be kind over being right (which has been more often lately that i'd care to admit)...
i breathe slowly and with as much awareness as possible (when i remember). 
i write (when i'm not busy managing a bunch of other things). 
i harvest vegetables and do my best to remember to offer a prayer beforehand and sing to them while i kill them (because that is what i am doing).

but this. this overwhelming onslaught of human insanity (what other kind could there be?) has my heart aching so much, i can't even seem to find my toolbox. sometimes it seems like it's buried in the back, bottom shelf of the cellar of my mind, behind the anger, rage, grief, despair, fear and absolute numbness of the daily onslaught of "news" (and i have unsubscribed to a LOT of stuff, just to maintain some semblance of sanity).

and then, a few mornings ago, in a compulsive flight of my fingers, i opened facebook (for some other reason which felt really, really important at the moment and subsequently forgot) and saw this post from a dear brother in Israel:
"A long night of sounds of sirens and missiles from Gaza blowing up near our Netivot home, mostly intercepted by Iron Dome, and return tank fire and aircrafts. Going back and forth with the littles ones to the "secure room"... May there be peace in Israel, may there be peace in Gaza...."

there were already 91 comments when i posted this one:
"i wish i could do more from here... but i am sending prayers of safety to you and your family, dear Eliyahu. may Love prevail so that all hearts and minds may remember we are All One. may any attachments to being right on any side of any conflict fall away and may we act from kindness over righteousness. thank you, dear brother, for being such a powerful, humble and potent messenger of Peace and Love."

after writing that comment, i burst into tears. i am simply overwhelmed at what we are doing to each other, our Earth home, and to our co-inhabitants here. 

this is all we have. there is no other place to go. and what good is it to consider going somewhere else? for what? to leave this place a trash heap for the Earth to clean up in her good time (which she would, i'm sure) having learned nothing about our part in creating it?

this phrase keeps going through my mind... just because we can, does it mean we should? i can apply this to a multitude of personal circumstances, relationships, national and global situations.
just because i can be mean to my husband, does it mean i should?
just because i can bury my head in a pillow, does it mean i should?
just because we can stand by while thousands of people die from political and religious violence every day, does it mean we should?
just because we can throw things "away" in our addiction to convenience, does it mean we should?
just because we can _______ [insert your favorites here], does it mean we should? 

the bad news is- life as we know it is going away; the good news is- life as we know it is going away.

and i wonder, how will we meet this new life?