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The Beauty in the Beast
It will never cease to delight, as well as frighten me, that I learned so much from my daughters when they were young. They were fascinated with the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast, and it takes me back to my own childhood memories of the classic. It's not only the innocence of the story, but the truth of it, that still intrigues me. To look into the eyes of the beast, and not see horror and evil, but goodness and beauty, was . . . well . . . romantic. How perceptive was the beautiful girl Belle, how selfless and noble. It was to these heights I aspired to as a child. I wanted to see the good in everything the proverbial silver lining in the dark cloud. To see my daughters believe so wholly brings out the childlike hope in me. It makes me remember a time when I believed, when I saw the beauty.

However, time took its toll on my imagination and tolerance, and before I hit late teens I was as coolly cynical as my peers. The world is full of horrors and injustices, and to think that there is hope and beauty is to deny reality. How can the existence of evil be denied, when the proof is so readily available? Ask anyone about the state of world affairs, and the answer will be filled with predictions of disaster. The media takes special delight with bad news, while good news is considered to be too trivial to warrant much attention. Even the comic page is a harbinger of doom. I believe this is because we want and expect it. Bad news is real news; good news is fluff. I too have been known to shake my head, and wonder aloud about our chances of survival in a world so damaged.
Rightly so we should worry. AIDs, homelessness, violence, war and all the other senseless horrors are our reality. To turn our collective backs would be unforgivably irresponsible and surely worsen our condition. We need to be aware of the dangers of the world to effect change for the better. We must take responsibility for our actions, and do our best to turn things around. The reality of the situation is an overwhelming burden, and being creatures of conscience, we let it darken our lives.
In our haste to face the beast, we have overlooked the beauty. While we lament the hole in the ozone layer, little attention is paid to the swelling grassroots recycling movement. While urban gang members are the hottest topic on the talk show circuit, thousands of teens committed to ending the drug problems in their schools, go virtually

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