All the Light We Cannot See

This weekend is a bit of a blur. I think I basically took it easy. Pottered around the house. Read a book for book club (referenced in title). Went to church.

The above book is about WW2, told from the perspective of a teenage girl living in occupied France and a teenage boy conscripted into the German army. I also recently read a book about WWI called The Eye in the Door about a traumatised returning soldier and his attempts to help people caught up in the reigning paranoia. Even though both books are fiction, I believe in the truth they tell.

I wonder at the human spirit--our ability to survive the most depraved and violent of circumstances. Of course, any Syrian refugee today can tell a similar story of hopelessness, meanness, vulnerability, violence. And I truly fear that the devastating effects of climate change will put more and more people on the move, looking for a safe harbour, with none to be found. Countries have shown amazing hostility to Syrians (Somalians, Iraqis...), so there’s no reason to expect kindness when Bangladesh, for example, goes under water.

And so I write and edit pieces for Preventable Surprises, and I send an e-mail to 500 people inviting them to participate in an online dialogue, and I try to convince myself that the thousands of NGOs and investor coalitions and sustainable finance efforts amount to something Big Enough, Soon Enough to bring us back from the brink of systems collapse.
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