It’s been a tough month for the country and for the world. In spite of the willful oblivion of many who ignore the news because it’s too “depressing,” disasters have a way of commanding our attention. At the risk of causing even more depressed readers to run for the hills, we can catalog some of the worst happenings:

The war in Ukraine and the new holocaust of the Jews at the hands of Hamas terrorists, and the devastating Israeli response, the bombing of Gaza, have taken center stage, but they are not the only catastrophes. Thousands have perished in earthquakes in Morocco and Afghanistan. Disastrous floods in Derna, Libya have killed as many as 10,000.

We are not left unscathed at home.

The incoherence of our national politics and our national consciousness seems to be the hallmark of society, duly noted by the media.

It’s important to mention consciousness because much of what is depressing in the news is about perception. But perception or otherwise, there are daily reports of the corruption of government officials, with the requisite criminal evidence to prove it.

There is the inability of the Congress to pass legislation to avert a calamitous November government shutdown. On a more alarming note, the news is filled with violent murders, assaults, mass shootings, child trafficking, and the killing of citizens by the police, the supposed guardians of public order.

And then the bridge collapses, train wrecks and traffic accidents which strangely enough don’t scare us anymore but seem to be a diversion from the more morbid stuff. But just when we’re ready to relax a bit and read about the hapless Denver Broncos and the comeuppance of the braggart Sean Payton, which is indeed just as painful as anything else, along come the insidious global climate change warnings, the 90 straight days of over 110-degree heat in Texas which is making thousands of Texans invade cool Colorado. Now that’s really scary.

That’s not all. There’s the terrible stuff, the specter of thousands of desperate migrants seeking refuge at the southern border. But, again, that’s just a perception because we are actually very fortunate to allow entry to so many willing workers ready to do the essential work that Americans will not do. But to fully understand the migration issue we must understand the pain. Migration is paid with a huge price in human life. Thousands die every year crossing deserts and mountains, pushed to inhospitable extremes by U.S. border policy. Let’s call it what it is, a Latino Holocaust. Can we ask America to understand and feel that pain?

What’s the purpose of all of this? There has to be a reason for the seeming chaos. If we believe that it is only chaos, like MacBeth, that “Life’s but a walking shadow: a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…” then we are truly doomed. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into that trap.

Recently, I attended a unique public event, an antidote to hopelessness. (It was well-publicized, but I saw no other Latinos there, which I consider to be very unfortunate.)

David and Paulette Greenberg, founders of the Greenberg Center for Learning and Tolerance, sponsored Remembering for the Future: Exploring Lessons from the Holocaust; Uniting Against Hate and Antisemitism; Building a Compassionate Future. Fr. John Pawlikoski, active in Catholic-Jewish Studies, and Scott Levin of the Anti-Defamation League made presentations which put the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews and 5 million others into perspective.

This perspective is that we are capable of learning, capable of opening our hearts to compassion, and, yes, opening our hearts to forgiveness. The Greenberg Center brought order out of chaos because compassion and forgiveness indeed create order out of chaos.

This means that behavior changes, that nations and governments cease their violence and promote peace. But forgiveness does not mean forgetfulness. As of October 7, we are called to understand yet more pain, the pain of 1,300 Israelis massacred by Hamas and at the same time the deaths of 1,500 people, and counting, in Gaza. We can forgive even that, but we must not forget it. That is what “remembering for the future” must be.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS. He teaches Mexico/U.S. Border Studies and U.S. Military History.

Joe Barrera