A Dutch woman – a teacher of one language and a speaker of three others – said to me recently that it would be better not to know about the evils of the world. This was in response to my saying something in passing about the Islamic State.

We were sitting in a tropical garden under an intensely blue sky where it would have been easy to put all that behind us and focus only on the toucan grouching in the tallest tree we could see.

I thought for a long moment, and then it occurred to me to say, “No, it’s better to know. If we don’t know the totality of the human condition, how can we become better people?”

And, if we don’t face squarely all the truths of our humanity, how can we write honestly about who we are?

© Sandra Shaw Homer, 2015

Photo by Marten Jager