The Giver

I irresponsibly tend to rely on social media platforms as my main news source. 

As an indecisive, sensitive, impressionable human, I absorb a lot of stories and opinions and ideas, and I'm never quite sure what to do with all of them. 

So the past couple weeks have just about done me in. 

Ebola. Gunshots. War. Violence. ALS. Childhood friend's grandmother's passing. 

And all these things are so many things in and of themselves, because we are all stories that meet up in different chapters of each others', coming from different starting points, after or in the middle of fighting different enemies both in and outside of ourselves, with all sorts of different characters, not to mention genetics and personalities. 

Shoot, I've personally had the whole spectrum of feelings just on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge... from high and mighty intellectual who actually knows the words to fill in the acronym of ALS, to condescending, to annoyed at the trendiness, to hurting for the reality it all represents, to hopeful and excited and swept up in the movement. And also umm, not completing it in the allotted 24 hours or ever. Whoopsies. 

My mind swirls off into, well yeah, that's a lot of money and awareness for this one, horrible disease that cannot be written off because it is personal to many, but what about all the other diseases, and wars, and prejudices and hatred? 

It seems to be too much. 

I cannot champion every cause. I can't heal every emotional and physical hurt. I can't clothe all bodies and feed all bellies and tell people to stop being mean. I can't scratch every back. I won't be able to herd us all into a circle to hold hands and sing kumbaya and make us say three nice things about the person to our right. 

I saw The Giver sometime in the midst of my anxiety of watching all of the bad things play out. 

It was a breath of fresh air. 

I loved the video montage that showed the full spectrum of humanity, all of the colors and geography and cultures, the good, the bad, and the ugly. They all play together to create the stories. Safety and order and aesthetic organization and peace mean nothing without counterparts. 

Grayscale and color. 

Night and day. 

Sickness and health. 

Death and life. 

War and peace. 

Evil and good. 

There is a reason these phrases sound cliche together... they exist together, because they must. 

I thanked God for not making us puppets - we can see color, feel emotions and physical sensations, learn from mistakes, choose.   

There is nothing new under the sun. 

Some of those things suck. 

But so many are beautiful.