Truth be Told, I'd Settle for a Life Less Frightening

Do you want to know why I'm sad today?

(Source)

Here's why I'm sad today. This is the sort of stuff I find myself reading on a daily basis.

Keith O'Brien: we cannot afford to indulge this madness
Fired for using birth control? It could be possible in Arizona
Kansas to Pregnant Women: "A Little Lie from Your Doctor Won't Hurt You."
Moroccan Girl Kills Herself After Judge Forces Her to Marry Her Rapist
I accused my husband of rape. I was locked up – and he was set free
#ididnotreport*

(Triggers for sexual assualt and things abound. Click carefully.)

I don't having anything particularly deep or analytical to say. I wish I did. It might make me feel better. It might make me feel like I was doing something even vaguely useful. But I don't.

Sometimes all the brokenness in the world just feels overwhelming.** It genuinely baffles me that, especially in the "developed" world, things like this are still happening. And not just "still", but with increasing frequency. It's times like this that The Handmaid's Tale doesn't seem all that fictional, and that terrifies me to the extent that I want to build a fort in my room and never go outside again.

In 2012 - in fact, ever, but especially now - the world shoudn't be so dangerous for over half of the people who live on it. It's madness.

And so I bake and I listen to Rise Against, because I need someone else to be angry about injustice and give me the words to sing about it. (And cookies never go amiss.) But I hate that I'm not doing anything - and I don't know what to do.

Short of becoming a superhero/villain. (Source)

I may have to stay away from the news for a little bit. At least it'll give me time to start working on that fort.

(No really, that's it. I told you I didn't have anything deep to say.)

*That last one's actually empowering, because people are speaking out against injustice, but the stories are heartbreaking.
**Which, unlike C.S. Lewis, I don't take as proof of God's existence. If anything, it seems to me to be the opposite (expecially since most of the evil is being done by people who claim to be on His team).