Now What? back to normal by Bill Wiser

Part of an article I found, read the rest here.
Almost every newspaper or magazine I picked up in the last weeks carried commentary similar to this column by the Boston Globe’s Ellen Goodman:

…It was in the personal tragedy we felt our unity. Waves swept away Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians with a ferocious indifference. The tsunami took no side in the decades-old enmities over borders and beliefs…

Once again, unified in the face of catastrophe, we hit the pause button on our own man-made conflicts…But I also watch us inch back to “normal.” On Page 1, the fury of nature shares space again with the folly of humanity. The victims of nature make room for the victims of man-made conflict.

Is this inevitable? What can you and I do about it? Goodman concludes with an intriguing observation and an unsettling question: “Even now, in the wake of the tsunami, we know more about tectonic plates buried under the ocean than we do about our own heart of darkness. Where on earth is the early warning system for man-made disasters?”

Some people call that early warning system the conscience. It’s the still small voice that tells us when we’ve done wrong. It’s also the clarion call to action when we don’t feel satisfied with things as they are.

The tsunami opened hearts and minds the world over. My children joined others in raising funds. But now what? While millions continue to battle for survival, aren’t our consciences telling us to seize this moment to examine the root causes of conflict?

Let’s start with something we seemed to have forgotten—until December 26. We all die the same. And we’re all born the same. So what happens in between? One thing I’m sure of: Children don’t naturally hate. To paraphrase some lyrics from the musical South Pacific, they’ve got to be carefully taught before it’s too late, before the age of six, seven or eight. We’ve been very good at teaching. Is it too late to do some learning?