What is happening with the refuges in Europe is almost beyond speech. The photos tear the heart assunder. Such photos are speech. The father holding the drowned body of his son is powerful and haunting, like photos we remember from Vietnam in the 70s. The innocents destroyed over the merciless politics of adults who will never bear the cost themselves.
I'm thinking of how we examine family photos looking for clues as to happiness or sadness. We somehow expect a revelation that will not transpire in words. We acknowledge the power of the visual. Yet photos can lie or be manipulated or manipulate us. They cannot stand alone.
Whatever makes us engaged and curious is positive. We may need the image to spur us on to seek the truth. The more powerful the image, the more we cannot look away. Our interdependence must be apparent for us to have compassion, and whatever nudges us to investigate is brave. So let us weep with this father, his two sons lost to him, but us not lost to what is happening so far away.
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