“The darker the night, the deeper the grief, the deeper the grief, the closer to God.” – Dostoyevsky

We planned a festive day, planting two butterfly bushes and two swamp birches next to the farmhouse to celebrate out sixth wedding anniversary. Life intervened, as it often does, and instead, we talked about it and we dedicated the bushes and the trees to the victims of the Orlando killings, another human act that seems beyond comprehension to me.

I can’t and wouldn’t tell anyone else how to react, I can only write about how I react and have hope that it might be helpful to someone else. We can’t do much celebration today, but we can feel gratitude.

When I hear of a tragedy like this, in a sense too large to really comprehend initially, I do not have the skills to explain it or comprehend it, so I withdraw from the outside world and turn inward.

I can only say what I feel, not what you must feel.

Healing and hope are inside of me, not on any screen. The politicians will call for rage, but that’s not my path. I’d prefer to feel grief and gratitude for what I have.

Another disturbed and broken man, I shake my head at a society that trembles over the specter of terrorism but lets the mentally ill and violent buy acquire most lethal weapons in the world to kill innocent people, including children and the unsuspecting young, again and again.

And all in the name of our freedom to die horribly. We are broken too.

I ask myself where hope is and I turn towards it. I believe in it.

Today, I have no interest in the posturing and exploitation of politicians, seeking votes and power even as the blood still flows and people struggle for their lives.

The media has nothing new to tell me after the first awful news, and i do not believe it is either healthy or helpful to wallow in the details for days, and suffer the repeated trauma of hearing them repeated again and again, hour after hour, day after day. I can only imagine what this does to the nervous systems and emotions of the gullible and the unaware.

That is not information or understanding, this is a profit-making addiction, a technological Opiod, and I do not care to succumb to it or support it.

I ask myself, “what do I love?,” and I go to it.

Maria, the dogs, my friends, my work, my camera, my farm, the donkeys, the horse, the sheep. How blessed I am to have so many things to love. I believe blame, like guilt, is a poison, and I not embrace blame or judgement. I am no better or wiser than anybody else.

Maria and I put the devices aside for the day and meditated for 15 minutes, the quiet and introspection was healing. We sat out on our chairs and held hands.

I thought of the victims and of the killer, and I thought of the anger and fear that will sweep in waves, a kind of poisonous tsunami that is, even as we speak, engulfing people whose vulnerabilities and sensory systems are battered with horror.

I will learn what I need to know, not more than that. To me, blame and judgement are the tools of the weak and damaged, they are not my tools or choices.

We dug the holes and watered the plants and dedicated the bushes and trees to the dead and injured, and to their families, who have suddenly crossed from one side of the world to the other and whose lives are plunged into darkness and despair. It is not me, but a part of me can feel what it might be like to be me.

Where is  hope?, I sometimes wonder.

In the small things. Acts of love and kindness, acts of generosity and compassion, time with someone you love, a walk with the dog, some time along, some time in thought. It has always worked for me. I have to heal, too, not quiver and shout. The answers for me are in  here, not out there.

Perhaps empathy, not accusation or hatred, is the best gift that I can offer myself, the most healing thing. For them, for me. I hope there is a way for me to help these people, that is one of the good things social media can do, and I will look for it.

The darker the night, the deeper the grief, the deeper the grief, the more I feel.