Human Nature Questions

Homeschool assignment today: Reading an excerpt from Elie Wiesel's "Night." I highly recommend the book, but it's not light reading. Questions I am asking Michael are: Why were the warning signs ignored? Someone literally came to their town with a first hand warning about what was happening with concentration camps. Why didn't they listen? Was it that they didn't want to believe it? Was it that they felt there was nothing they could do anyway? What if someone came and told me that I was in that kind of danger? Would I abandon my home and belongings? uproot my family and run? where would I go? what would I do? would anyone help us?

I feel that there is a strong connection between that war and the wars being waged now in the Middle East and around the world. Some common denominators are violence and injustice among other things. My friend Maha, who is from Libya and living here in Fort Collins has told me about her struggle being here. She has good English, but is a minority in many ways including religion, culture, appearance... She is unable to work because of the type of visa she has. Her family back in Libya hears sounds of war daily and is in constant fear for their lives. Their money that they had saved in Libya is inaccessible, their land worthless now. Why do we struggle so much to relate? Is it because it is too scary to admit that anything like that could happen to us? Is it because if we accepted that bad things happen to good people are faith in God's sovereignty and goodness would be rocked? Maybe it's a survival mechanism... that we stay focused on the good around us. Or maybe we just feel powerless to do anything about it anyway...