The Shape of Things to Come

Five people have died and 40 people have been injured in a terror attack near the Houses of Parliament. These kinds of attacks, involving cars and knives, what are seen as "low tech" attacks, seem to be the new way terrorists are unleashing murder on the world. We mourn those who have died, we pray for those injured, and we look for the courage to face a future that is more uncertain, more full of fear.

“the flames are silent,
Peace is violent,
Tears are frozen
’cause massacre was chosen.

~~ 26/11– Mumbai terror attack memories”
― Ankita Singhal


The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. There are tyrants, not Muslims.

How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.”
― Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
― Nelson Mandela

“I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back....”
― Erica Jong

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
― Franklin D. Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural

"What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.”
― David Levithan, Love Is the Higher Law

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
-- W.H. Auden

“Just above our terror, the stars painted this story
in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often
abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.”
― Aberjhani