Gazing in the Mirror

December 15 - Yearning For Sanity

The community needs us to
be at our best as Americans,
.... because while nothing can
fill the space of a lost child
or loved one, all of us can
extend the hand to those in
need, to remind them that we
are there for them, that we
are praying for them, that
the love they felt for those
they lost endures not just in
their memories, but also in ours.
~ Barack Obama,
44th United States President

I do not believe that God has
imposed suffering upon anyone
to punish them or to teach them
a lesson.
~ Ernest Holmes

There is something about human experience that begs us to reconsider. Why is it that violence is so pervasive in our current society ? I have to believe that humanity is on the cusp of a quantum leap of morphic resonance into a better quality of life or else I could not bear the thought of continuing to live amid the madness. While I recognize destruction as an aspect of the natural cycle, that does not result in my believing that man's inhumanity towards man is a necessity of life. There is an ethic of violent response in many countries that needs to be questioned and purposefully addressed by caring individuals.

Such violence is encouraged in our sporting events and entertainments. Such violence is utilized when we send our young people into strange lands to kill people of different cultures in order to pursue our leader's political agenda. Beyond defense against a direct attack on our own soil, war does not make sense to my heart. It has never made sense to me. When I see actions where a lone gunman acts out militaristic fantasies in harsh reality and perpetrates mass killings in public places upon innocent and unsuspecting fellow citizens - to my thinking it must be some kind of misguided mentality. Yet it is hard for the average person to even comprehend the common presence of these symptoms of our dis-ease. What causes a human being to perpetrate an expression of such terror on other people ?

Time and again this issue returns seeking our collective attention. Until we heed its demand for resolution, we will not be free of its possibility. Nationalism does at times encourage citizens to participate in ethnic cleansing and racial violence when it serves their leader's agenda. We cannot "fight against" violence. We can recognize what brings violence to pass and consider what options are available to prevent or avoid it. Certain changes in a person's environment can generate uncertainty and feel so threatening that it promotes feelings of anxiety and an urgency to respond. If that response comes through a poorly thought out rush to do something, anything, the result may be so short-sighted it fails. On a macro scale, it could be worthwhile to attempt an understanding of the causes of political violence and see it as the dynamic process that it is. We need to understand the ways in which destabilization in authority structures may promote responses by those in opposition that can lead to violence or similarly violent responses by those who are seeking to maintain some status quo.

These macro expressions of violence are too frequently glorified in our pop culture. Our movie makers, artists, novelists and video game creators are all a part of this pervasive violence. While some people will argue that images of blood and bullets in general don't motivate a person to violence, I believe that marginalizing it is only a denial of our collective complicity in allowing such expressions to come into the sacred spaces of our family homes. Even though violence as entertainment dates back to Homer and Shakespeare, I do not accept that fact as an indication that it is harmless. While it is true that thoughtful people may seek to reflect upon the more unpleasant realities of human experience in order to consider their role in the fabric of society, I don't truly believe that is the actual purpose for most of the violence we see in modern entertainments.

We need to look at why we project in charismatic style many of the villains starring in our entertainments. Though shadow work is an important pursuit in spiritual practice, it has seemed to me that our entertainments have entered into ever darker and ever more disturbing areas of human experience. Some of these explorations appear to push the boundaries of decency into more intensely voyeuristic experiences. Those who create our entertainments could take more responsibility for the potential effects the kinds of subject matter they chose to portray could have on vulnerable people. While the artist may only be seeking enough impact to result in their financial success, their effort ought to be tempered by the kind of "good taste" that could be understood as life affirming or might inspire others to want to emulate the best in human qualities.

Gratuitous or even "artful" violence when displayed only for violence sake or which seeks simply to increase the emotional impact of a work upon an audience does exact a price in human life. Certainly, in my opinion, the best kinds of entertainment speak strongly to the resilience of the human spirit even as these endeavors fully engage our emotions. Many people do yearn for the best kind of outcome to a story because it brings a general hopefulness to the heart. Too often our actual experience of life includes it's more difficult realities. Entertainment can offer us a temporary escape that restores our ability to meet whatever comes next. While we cannot dismiss the commercial demands that fund our entertainments, I feel that we should question the seeming popularity of certain genres that can only appeal to the lower values of human expression. Why do guns, blood and dismemberment entertain ? Can we truly deny that these might have an effect on those with the most conflicted, skewed or misguided thinking processes or personalities ?

~ perspective

I forgive my own self for less
than loving behaviors, for the
times I have acted out of hate,
envy, fear, revenge or have been
aggressive or mean-spirited
towards another person.
I try to understand the collective
ethic of violence in society which
somehow perpetuates the kinds of
tragic events that briefly open our
hearts to seek change.
I believe that hearts and minds
must turn away from a fascination
with violence before unfortunate
tragic events of violence will cease
from occurring.
I continue to believe that human
nature is fundamentally good, and
though it is sometimes not clearly
evident, I yet hold that belief sacred.
I try to do my part and be the
change by being the best human I
understand how to be.

#culture #darkness #destruction #entertainment #madness #nationalism #politics #reality #terrorism #war