Just In Time, The Sun Is Coming Out

If our staff weather swami is right, the sun should shine today. And by God, it’s about time. The last two weeks have been enough - too much - for the emotional psyche of any community to bear.

We thought it was bad a couple of years ago when Dean Mellberg shot up Fairchild Air Force Base; days later a B-52 crashed and killed the crew. But most of us are more familiar with a junior high school, or a downtown coffee shop, than we are with an air base. So, the fear strikes frightfully close to the heart. And the frustration of dealing with a natural disaster like flooding only adds to a helpless feeling that things are going to hell in a handbasket.

But they’re not. Hopefully you can walk in the sunshine today, and the sky will be so blue it hurts you eyes. And maybe you can walk confidently, secure in the knowledge you recognized it’s time we gave the schools the resources they need to better educate and equip our children for life. You did the right thing.

And we feel sure that you readers are better equipped than we are at learning the lessons that need to be learned from random acts of violence: That spats between kids that used to result in playground fights now can escalate to cold-blooded murder. That the frustration of growing old in poverty, and the loss of dignity that comes with it, can lead to cold-blooded murder. And that we haven’t done a good enough job of teaching the skills necessary to deal with the feelings that fuel that rage.

And if we’ve done our job at the newspaper you also know that the only way to deal with the damages inflicted on a community by nature or man are best healed by banding together and helping each other through the bad times.

The community of Moses Lake never looked stronger than it did in the face of the murders at Frontier Junior High. The parishioners in the church community of St. Pius in Coeur d’Alene are drawing support from each other as they suffer the loss of two members to senseless violence. One quality of human nature that saves us in times of need is the tendency to draw strength from family, friends and neighbors.

Jealousies and petty complaints quickly melt to the greater need for peace and compassion. Witness the concerted efforts of the people of Colfax in patching the levee that protected their town from raging flood waters. Residents all over the Pacific Northwest did the same thing, in recent days.

So the question we’re left with is, how do we extend that spirit to our lives every day, and make it commonplace rather than drawing on it only in emergencies?

Or are we doing that already and like many good things it goes unnoticed? For every teenaged gunman there are thousands of kids who are growing up straight and true. And for every tortured soul there are hundreds of volunteers and social workers bringing Meals on Wheels, counseling and government aid to those in need.

So if the weather is right, take that walk in the sun, take a minute to look at the good things in your community, smile at your friends, and be thankful.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Scott Sines/For the editorial board