Read the rest of Slate’s coverage of the Sandy Hook school shooting. On April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire on tourists in a seaside resort in Port Arthur, Tasmania. By the time he was finished, he had killed 35 people and wounded 23 more.
Connecticut school
shooting stuns the world.
However only days after
twenty seven people including 20 elementary school children are murdered and a
teary eyed response from the president the White House is waffling and side
stepping a political solution. White House spokesman Jay Carney stated,
"it's a complex problem that requires a complex solution." Apparently
these complexities elluded the small island of Australia where strict gunlaws
were enacted following a 1996 mass shooting. Australia reports it hasn't
had a similar incident since.
I watched a city wide
writing competition for middle schools recently. Prior to the awards
announcements there was a talent show. One young kid sang Luther
Vandross’ Dance With My Father, there were a variety of other things and an
audience participation on stage lip sync and dance of Gangnam Style.
There was so much joy watching these children cheering, singing along acting
silly and as I say, fulfilling part of their kids’ job description being
carefree.
So as Luther’s lyrics
waxed sentimental and nostalgic wishing for one more dance with father many of
us teared up thinking about 20 sets of parents who will never dance with their
children again.
A question, I heard in an
interview about Sandy Hooks “what do we tell the children,” forced its way into
my mind. We can tell them don’t worry pray and it will never happen to
you, we live in a safe and predictable world, but these things are not
true. I looked at my daughter, and her group on stage bumbling through a
dance routine then her screaming “woohooo thank you… “ yada yada at the
microphone and I thought; honey I hope that was fun. I hope everyday you rise
you fend off the evil and negativity of this world living side by side with
goodness and mercy and find something joyful in your day, because tomorrow is a
gift not promised.
Bill Maher says…
Sorry but prayers and
giving your kids hugs fix nothing; only having the balls to stand up to our
insane selfish gun culture will. I couldn’t agree more with Bill Maher. In
other words faith without works is missing the mark. Conviction without
action is not conviction it is an idea and hot air. If these are real they
produce… something.
Many of us say we believe
this, but many of us have few convictions just ideas and hot air.
Is It Gun Culture or a
Culture of Violence Flamed by Incivility, Insensitivity, and Intolerance?
Does gratuitous violence
beget violence? A lot of us feed our appetite for many forms of violence
constantly. Each individual has to judge the harm things like this do or
don’t do, I guess.
One can read all over the
I-net that the subconscious mind does not know the difference between fantasy
and reality so to the subconscious mind a movie killing is not perceived as
fantasy. I do not know if that is true; however there is research to
suggest that in the conscious mind the line between fantasy and reality can be
very blurry. According to the work of Donald D. Hoffman, Ph. D., in
computational psychology, Department of Cognitive Science University of
California, Irvine, reality affirms fantasy and vice versa.
So it could be that the
reality is that violence is violent and it only matters in degrees whether one
see’s it across the street or on CSI or whether one is a victim of
violence. It doesn’t matter if it is a racist, misogynistic or homophobic
degrading joke, snide comment meant to damage someone’s ego, or the last straw
body image comment or commercial that drives a young girl into anorexia.
Do you think a violent
diet of living vicariously through media good and bad guys alike, enduring
slights uncivil and intolerant behavior and language on a regular basis have a
cumulative effect? I think I channeled Rush Limbaugh once. How much
psychic damage does it take to push one over the edge? How much psychic
damage does it take to push one community over the edge or a country over the
edge?
Maybe this is what Jesus
the sage was eluding to when he said if you create an act in your mind you have
committed an act in your heart (he chose adultery to speak about). The
one liberating thing about this maxim is that it must work both ways in the negative
and the positive mustn’t it?
An idea making the rounds
on the I-net attributed to Marianne Williamson, says,
Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask
ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually,
who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not
serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children
do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not
just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated
from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
I used to roll my eyes at
this but suppose most of us are willfully hot potato tossing the power and
corresponding responsibility we have off on God by praying or by blaming the
closest idiot? How many of us say that pray, “God send me,” and then get
up and go?
Suppose it is true if we
have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed we can move mountains?
Gandhi did, Dr. King did. Dr. Paul Farmer did in Haiti. As great as these
people were and are none of them did great things single handedly.
Amit Goswami a renowned
theoretical nuclear physicist Professor Emeritus Oregon University and featured
in the movie “What the Bleep do We Know?” theorizes that consciousness creates
mind and matter, subject and object, which dovetail quite nicely with “mustard
seed” faith.
It could be exactly what
would happen when “the woman with an issue of blood” healed herself without
permission or even asking a god or anyone. Her faith was not born in
religion, she had no faith in doctors, she had already tested them as all faith
should be tested, she had faith born out of desperation: a faith that caused
her to focus on a solution that had no doctrine behind it, no orthodoxy just an
idea and focused commitment to change her circumstance. How many of us have a
focused commitment to change ourselves to change our world to change our
circumstance?
So Bryan Fischer and Mike
Huckabee proclaim the Connecticut Sandy Hook massacre, Columbine and other
school and college related massacres happened because Gentleman Good God has been
kicked out of the schools and doesn’t go where he isn’t wanted. I find
myself not wanting to dignify their ideas held by many with any kind of comment
or acknowledge that it was even said.
The “Kingdom of
Potential” is with in us, not in the act of public prayer but into the
single-minded action we embark upon when we hear ourselves pray and that is why
everything that does not proceed from faith that does not proceed from
conviction is missing the mark.
One definition of prayer
is, a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an
object of worship. Let us worship life and life more abundantly and let
the life be the light of all people. Let us walk in the life and the way
that promotes abundant living and the truth that affirms a God whose definition
is goodness and a universe that is sufficient.
I’m sorry Fischer and
Huckabee choose to believe something so uninformed about the God they claim to
know they are trying to make sense of the world too, just saying. I guess
as the poor shall always be with us so shall the ignorant. In fact there
are areas in which we are all ignorant and blind to what real is so let us
mitigate damage as much as we can forgive and continue to press toward the mark
not kick against the pricks.
We have such potential to
change our world but we abdicate our responsibility though we know if everyone
is not comfortable then we are thieves and leeches living at the expense of the
poor. We hide our lack of action in words of outrage, and also in prayers and
psalms as if in so speaking we’ve done our part. We point our fingers as if
responsibility starts just beyond our reach.
When I hear an atheist
quip, “thank you God for sparing the lives of 20 children in Connecticut… oh
wait a minute, you didn’t, f*ck God,” I can understand the anger, though I was
not angry I was deeply saddened by what happened in Connecticut; I can
understand the question, if there is a just God then why? However I can’t
understand the misdirected rage in the midst of such a tragedy.
I must ask that person
and all of us of that spirit of complaint and condescension, where is your
faith? Was that misdirect the best you can do that’s it?! Certainly
your faith does not rest in your non-god but you must certainly believe in goodness
fighting the good fight or you must be silent. You must have hope in
light of a non-existent god that especially together with others you have power
to change things or you should have no part in this public showing of pain,
dismay, an healing.
You must certainly
acknowledge that without God it is of the utmost importance to have faith in
yourself and humanity that your positive mindset and doings must endure if
darkness is ever to be conquered if darkness is not to overtake all.
Darkness will not just go
away it is apart of our world with which we must deal. We must give our
lives to fight it, if goodness is to triumph. If your dark side is to remain
contained or better yet transformed, reborn.
I think if you are giving
in to your dark side and self -righteousness, if you are putting some burden on
others that you don’t accept you brother are a Pharisee; believe me you don’t
need a god to be one. There is little difference between you and the religious
person you hate and demean for being misguided, bigoted and myopic.
As misguided as you think
religious people are, some of them lost their children Friday. You may as
well grab a picket sign and join Washington Baptist church you are both on the
same side, crucifying folks for believing what you feel is clearly wrong.
Coming up: Where do we go
from here?
See on www.slate.com
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