Bethany Joy Lenz wrote an emotional essay following the terrible attack in Nice, France, where at least 84 lives, including 10 children, were lost after a truck drove through the crowd of 30,000 celebrating Bastille Day on Thursday night. As many other celebs, including Kristen Bell, the One Tree Hill star too felt the need to address the public on the recent wave of violent attacks that claimed so many innocent lives.
The essay, posted on BJL's blog, starts, "I’m having a hard time writing about makeup. Or fashion. Or luxury travel. Especially that. Because that gorgeous 5 star hotel on the beach (or in the middle of the city) is the perfect way to spend your vacation unless someone gets into a semi loaded with automatic weapons and drives into a crowd enjoying the evening fireworks display. The hottest new nightclub is the perfect place to unwind and blow off some steam after work unless someone walks in with a machine gun and open fires on the dancing crowd. That recipe I told you about is the perfect thing to cook for your visiting family and friends, unless you’re on your way the the grocery store and you’re black and someone in a uniform is a afraid of you so they shoot you. Because you’re black and trying to get groceries. Those in-season pleats and florals are the perfect look to wear to that concert, unless someone walks into the show strapped with a bomb and blows up half the crowd. WHAT are we DOING?"
The star goes on to praise the social networks for allowing people to mass spread important messages meant to raise awareness on global critical issues like educating young girls or tolerance, but she admits that there's only so much we can do when it comes to "educating young recruit-targets for terrorism." In the end, she says, if everything else fails, we can still pray.
"If it’s literally the least you can do- Pray" she writes. "If it’s the most you can do- Pray. Pray constantly. Live and love and be grateful and have joy and don’t live in fear and anguish, but be aware all the time and acknowledge that awareness by asking for help- by praying. Even if you don’t believe in God… on the off chance you’re wrong, and for the sake of doing something… can you just do it anyway? We’re in dire straights on planet earth right now. It may be the only real thing we can do."
You can find the entire essay here.
No comments:
Post a Comment