Thoughts about #Thoughts&Prayers

Thoughts about #Thoughts&Prayers

Last night, as the terrible events unfolded yet again, this time in London, social media lit up as it does with tragic familiarity with the chaos of contrary bulletins, appeals for help and offers of assistance, congratulations to the first responders and condemnation of the perpetrators and, following quickly of the politicians too…

And then comes the wave of hashtags: #prayers&thoughts, #PrayforLondon etc… and, as is usual of late, following hard and fast on their heels come the wave of those who do not want the “platitude of prayer” or are frustrated with the offering of “prayers and thoughts” that seem to do nothing but make people feel better about themselves and perhaps even seem to absolve of responsibility…

“Do something!” the crowd roars… “Don’t just stand there thinking and praying do something!”… and then the virtual crowd tears itself apart as it tries to decide just what it is we should be doing… how we should be reacting… and very quickly shock becomes sadness, and sadness becomes frustration, and frustration becomes anger, and anger becomes hate and hate seeks a victim, and violence begets violence and it is all understandable…but lamentably so.

So I wonder… perhaps this hashtag is more important than ever in these days of struggle with fundamentalist forces and knee-jerk reactions to events? After all, the terrorists want to do one thing and one thing only… they want to dictate how you should pray and what you should think. This is the reality of religious fundamentalism. They do not want you to reflect and to choose your reaction as thousands are doing in Manchester and London tonight, choosing love over hate, and even more so in the case of our Coptic brothers and sisters of Egypt, who astound with their long suffering forbearance, and choose forgiveness over hate. The terrorists, indeed the fundamentalists of any sect or group, are always most threatened by a human being choosing to reflect, to think, to pray according to their own conscience. And so they engage in terror, in random acts of violence calculated to disturb, to anger, to disable our rationality so that our knee jerk reactions will simply fulfil their twisted prophecies of hate and spiral out of control into ever decreasing circles of fear, anger, pain, death.

No, instead let us truly offer our thoughts and prayers. Let us, people of all faiths and none, choose the reflective path that looks not at symptoms but causes and then attempts, calmly but unflinchingly, to deal with the symptoms by changing the causes, while consistenly and constantly affirming the rights of all to the freedom of thought, of faith and of prayer that is at the core of what we all believe.

Before we do something let us think, and pray, and reflect. Then we will be more likely to do the right thing. At the very least we will be doing the one thing they do not want us to do; for after all, our thoughts and prayers are exactly what the terrorists want to control.

Peace to London, to Manchester, to Afghanistan, to Egypt, to Syria, to Iraq, to the Philippines… peace to all…

And yes... my thoughts and prayers are with them all tonight.

Blessings +