I can’t take anymore, dear readers.

I can’t take one more shooting, one more story about cruelty and hate or one more news alert depicting the atrocities we commit against one another. I can’t look at one more photo of weeping young people standing outside a school building they once thought of as a safe space that has since been redefined as a personal hell.

Every day, I turn on the television, open up Facebook or read a newspaper and a majority of the content is about another violent act, another hateful message or some new horror and it makes me want to weep.

Recently, another college campus was the scene of gunfire and resulted in several deaths in Oregon.

For quite sometime, refugees from the Middle East and Africa have been fleeing for their lives, climbing into boats and looking across the sea for hope – only to be rejected once they get there, or worse, not make it at all.

Yet, the anguish and despair of the world shows its face in our own region, dear readers. Any given day on the local news beat, there is a new drug bust, report of violence or an overdose.

It is knocking at our door.

Yet, it is easy to withdraw and separate ourselves from the unpleasant if not frightening occurrences which happen outside our lives. If it isn’t happening directly to us, it’s easy to watch the news or read an article and think, “Oh, that’s terrible, but what can I do?”

It was a similar situation for a few of my favorite hobbits in the “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” film.

If you aren’t familiar, Pippin, a hobbit or small humanoid in the Lord of the Rings series, is trying to convince his friend Merry to return to their home where it is safe instead of face the great danger and war that lies ahead. Pippin believes he and his friend are too small to do any good in the fight against evil.

“We’ve got the Shire. Maybe we should go home,” Pippin said.

“The fires of Isengard will spread and the woods of Tuckburough and Buckland will burn and all that was once green and good in this world will be gone,” Merry replied. “There won’t be a Shire, Pippin.”

Merry implies that the violence and danger will spread to their own hometown if they do not stand together now.

Friends, I hate to say it, but our Shire is getting to that point. Great adversity is at our doorstep.

We can no longer turn a blind eye to the suffering of our fellow man, be it those who suffer from addiction, those who are impoverished, people who feel hopeless and lost or those who are fleeing for their lives.

I’ve noticed lately that the world feels more divided than it used to. It’s like there is this vast chasm in between all of us that keeps us from seeing our similarities, our humanity and the things that bind us together as people.

It’s hard to wrap my brain around the fact that people are fleeing their homes because the group that has come to power in their home country is bent on destroying them because they are different.

It literally brings tears to my eyes to imagine these students being held at gun point, being grilled about their religion before they are shot.

I shudder to think about the mental anguish, pain and sorrow that must permeate the lives of those battling drug addiction.

I’m tired of trying to keep my head down and let someone else fix the problem, dear readers. I might, in the grand scheme of things, be a tiny hobbit when compared to the rest of the world – but I’ve got two hands, a beating heart and a belief that small acts can create a big change.

I can’t save those students, I can’t rescue the refugees and I can’t stop people from taking drugs, committing crimes or being violent.

But, my friends, I can lend a helping hand to those in need.

I can love my neighbor as I love myself.

I can donate to good causes, volunteer to help and raise my voice when I see something that needs to be said.

If we all, at least once a day, offered just one more kind word or one more compassionate act, I can’t even imagine the impact it would have.

Let us make a wave of compassion and love to wash over our city, our county, our nation and our world.

As the song goes, “And let it begin with me.”