Peace to Paris, peace to Beirut, peace to Ankara, peace to Kenya, to the world...

By Amelia Diamond

It's weird that it was sunny in New York. The attacks on Friday in Paris stained the world with so much darkness that one began to wonder if the lights in the sky still worked, that maybe the moon is artificial after all.

Illuminated instead was the presence of evil. Real evil. A word or concept that feels constructed for the sake of comic book villains but applies every time unthinkable acts of violence strike, and what's overwhelming is that acts of violence strike, and they strike, and they strike.

The bombings in Beirut. The Russian plane crash in Egypt. The bombings at a funeral in Baghdad. The massacre at Garissa University College in Kenya. The train station bombings in Ankara. These are just a few.

They make us feel helpless. They make us feel small. They are stone hands on our bird bone shoulders that push us into the ground, paralyzing our beings. Can't think or breathe or move. In tiny voices we barely whisper, "What do we do?"

I called my dad last night to ask him as much. I needed to know if it was okay to watch something other than the news. Was it okay to not break plans when the world was breaking? What if something was funny? Could I laugh — was I allowed to? How do we at Man Repeller open our site Monday morning with a post about clothes and shoes?

He told me that the difference between all of us and terrorists is that terrorists destroy. They tear things down. They do not build.

We build. Humanity creates. Music, literature, art, film, architecture, laughter, food, family, love; we make these things. It's why in spite of destruction and horror, we will prevail. We'll rebuild.

Did you ever read A Wrinkle in Time? The main characters are three kids who travel across time and space to fight The Darkness. Evil. At one point, they observe the thick mass through a medium's crystal ball. They see it clouding our planet and it terrifies them.

One of the main characters asks their guide, Mrs Which, to tell them what's going to happen to the world.

She tells them, "We will continue to fight."

She also tells them that we're not alone. "All through the universe it's being fought, all through the cosmos, and my, but it's a grand and exciting battle."

The children are not so convinced.

They continue to watch The Darkness through the crystal ball, and then:

"Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the Darkness the Darkness disappeared…and there was only a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars, clear and pure…No shadows. No fear. Only the stars and the clear darkness of space, quite different from the fearful darkness of the Thing.

'You see!' the Medium cried, smiling happily. 'It can be overcome! It is being overcome all the time!’"

Those exclamation points, her exuberance, such assured positivity — it all feels a little too bright right now. Sort of like the sun this morning. But the sun was just doing its job, signaling us to wake up, strap our heavy hearts to our chest, fight the darkness, and live this life.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Paris. Our thoughts and prayers are with the world.