2017

As the winter holidays approach, we are inclined to reflect on the events of the previous year, to celebrate our joys and our accomplishments, acknowledge our losses and difficulties, and formulate a vision of how we might like to move forward in the coming months. 

This year past year cries out for a different approach.

The United States and neighboring island nations were pummeled by three massive hurricanes in 2017. Each of these storms might have been considered the most catastrophic in a generation. They just kept coming.

Hurricane Harvey brought death and destruction to East Texas and Louisiana. Irma, the largest and most powerful hurricane in history, devastated the Florida Keys and destroyed every standing structure on some of the smaller Caribbean. Finally, Maria, the mother of all storms, brought a second wave of devastation to the Caribbean and causes incomprehensible damage on Puerto Rico. Most of the island was left without power or clean drinking water for weeks. The slow and inadequate response from Washington compounded the impact of these problems.

Further afield, a deadly earthquake caused widespread damage in Mexico. Deadly floods ravaged Bangladesh and Sierra Leone. California burned like never before.

But 2017 was not just a year of unprecedented natural disasters. Acts of human cruelty set records as well. According to ABC News, from the first of the year to 15 November, there were 317 mass shootings in the United States, or about one per day. The shooting at the Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas was the deadliest in the history of our nation. A mere thirty-five days later, 26 people were shot to death at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Terrorism continues to be a global problem. An attack on a mosque in Egypt killed over three-hundred people. More than 500 were killed by a truck bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia. An ethnic minority in Myanmar suffered brutal persecution. Attacks of conveniences using motor vehicles increased. Either tourists were killed by such an attack in New York City. A woman protesting a White Supremacist rally in Virgina was killed when someone deliberately drove a car into a crowded street. Note that I have deliberately avoided mention of the appalling state of the political climate, another troubling dimension of life in this era.

Typically, I would post a summary of personal achievements and notable experiences at this time of the year. I may still attempt that - an internal debate has been raging for some time - but I could not in good conscience see myself writing about where I went on vacation before first addressing the unprecedented suffering that has occurred throughout the world over the past twelve months.

This could very well be how 2017 will be remembered by history, as a shocking and horrific time that brutalized our planet and us along with it. That’s how I remember it. Let us pray for a kinder, safer reality in 2018. My worst fear is that things could become even worse.