Again....

Let's please stop the madness.

• Let's please talk to each other. 
• Let's please recognize that many of those involved in acts of violence are often sick or afraid individuals and not representative of any one or any thing. 
• Let's not allow our fears to overcome the fact that we are actually far safer and less crime-ridden than we have ever been. 
• Let's not allow media on any side to incite us into greater anger or fear.

Let's please stop the madness!

Dangerous Memes and Posts

• If you were beaten with a belt by your father and turned out okay, "Like" this.
• If your teacher paddled kids and you still learned in the classroom, "Like" this.
• If you rode in the open back of a pick-up truck when you were a child and weren't killed, "Like" this.

Well, they don't read quite that way, but pretty darn close. They seem to say that a violent approach to child-rearing is how to raise good kids; that corporal punishment by school staff is nothing; that unsafe driving practices are just ways of having fun.

And yes, many people did survive those events un-scarred by them. Including me for at least some of them.

But we have learned something about life and violence in the past generation or so. We have also learned about the dangers on the highway, especially in a world today where traffic is far riskier and "busy" than when I was a kid.

I agree that it is impossible to prevent all injuries or predict what a spanking will do to a child's psyche.  But I also tend to believe it is better to err on the side of caution and find other ways of discipline. Will a spanking at the right time prevent some child from becoming a criminal? Perhaps. But the odds are also that it might just teach- and perpetuate- a violent approach to life.

I don't "Like" those memes and posts on Facebook. I think they are dangerous and promote unsafe behavior. It's bad enough that young people, especially teenagers, are already prone to dangerous things. Let's not add to their dangers.

Two From the News

Every now and then some things jump out of the evening news at me. In this case there were two stories the other evening with some phrases that caught my attention. They are saying far more than might be first expected.

• The first was about the shooting at the mall in Columbia, Maryland. The reporter was talking about some of the people in the mall who hid in other stores instead of trying to escape. The phrase he used was:

They sheltered in place.

It wasn't all that long ago that we had never heard that term. It is probably already in the Official Dictionary of English Phrases. Children in schools are told to "shelter in place." Shoppers at a mall are told to "shelter in place." When we hear that we know there is danger somewhere nearby.

• The other story followed right on the first. It was about the unrest in the Ukraine. First, it was called a scene of

Post-apocalyptic mayhem.

We then saw images that could easily have been from one of the Mad Max movies or Cormac McCarthy's The Road.Then, in a good example of mixing time periods if not metaphors, the reporter called it a

Medieval battle scene.

This time the images were of gas-masked protestors at the barricades.It looked like a real-life scene that could have been used for a contemporary documentary of Les Miserables. Whether post-apocalyptic, medieval or Les Mis updated, it was a compelling scene.

Of course we have heard for years, if not longer, that news has to catch your attention. It has to be compelling. It has to be "out-of-the-ordinary" or it wouldn't be "news." Is the man or the dog doing the biting makes all the difference. Molotov cocktails and protestors kicking at police in Kiev or Cairo are stories that make the cut. They are riveting. The power of TV news since Vietnam is its immediacy.

Video of people running from the Mall, however, while others "shelter in place" grabs us viscerally. It could have been us. That was brought home in a post from a friend who lives in Maryland, grateful that their adult child, who I have known for years, was late for their luncheon appointment at the Columbia Mall. It was "locked down" when she got there. That is emotional.

It was like after 9/11 and I went to the Mall of America. It was easy to shiver when thinking about the fact that I was standing in the center of one of the terrorists projected targets. Safety seemed a little less safe. Today, though, I don't even notice the concrete barriers that were erected in 2001 around the entrances on ground level. Like "sheltering in place" it has become common place.

I am not sure about the value I place on this or even the meaning it might hold for us. But one that comes to mind is that we humans are quite adaptable. It is in our evolution. We can adapt, especially when it supports our safety. We evolve in ways that support the continuation of the species. The world is not more dangerous today than it was when I was in school. Bad things have always happened. There are many signs that overall the world is a safer place today than it has ever been.

Sidenote: Stephen Pinker, experimental psychologist at Harvard, has written a book on that thesis.
Called The Better Angels of Our Nature, he goes into great detail to show how much safer we all are today from violence and even war. It is a good read.

Maybe that's why the images are still so riveting and the drive for safety so compelling.

A Quick Thought

After seeing Zero Dark Thirty yesterday (an excellent movie), I had a simple response.

I don't know if the director Kathryn Bigelow is pro- or anti- torture. I don't know how loose and easy she played with the real story and whether torture played a part in finding bin Laden or not. I do know this.

Watching the torture scenes convinced me that torture (and revenge, which is what torture is ultimately about!) turns everyone involved in animals, less-than-human. Everyone, including the "good guys."

Which is the same message I got from Tarantino's Django Unchained, by the way. In spite of all the "good guy" bloodshed of the "bad guys" blood, revenge is awful when carried to its extreme.

I suppose there are those who will disagree with me. But my Christian beliefs have a hard time reconciling with such violence.

Darkness Amidst the Light: Light Beating the Darkness

Dec. 28- Liturgical Calendar date of The Slaughter of the Innocents

 It is now 14 days since the tragedy at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School. Two weeks of mourning, questions, fears, and a seemingly endless news cycle broken only momentarily by Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Time to make real what President Obama said at the vigil on that Sunday evening: This has to end.

That means some sensible gun control discussions and debate. Let's forget the hysteria. You know it well. I know it well. We need assault weapons in private ownership like we need to return to using quill pens and oil lamps. NO, it is not a way to protect ourselves from the government, as I heard one legislator say. Are you freakin' insane, I wanted to ask? Having hoardes of private citizens own assault weapons to "protect from our own government" is not a constitutional right. That is NOT a "well-regulated militia." That is anarchy, which by definition is not well-regulated. Arm the principals of the schools? You may very well lose a lot of good principals who don't want to be part of a gun-culture. Put armed guards in every school? Columbine and Virgina Tech had those.

And will we put armed guards at every mall, place of worship or beauty spa in the country? Will we become an armed camp with guns in the hands of every Tom, Dick, and Harry? How scary!

Cars don't kill people, drunk drivers do. That is just insane to even post as a reasonable thought. It is why we have laws ABOUT drunken driving, what you could call "Drunken Driving Control." When Minnesota got tough on drunken driving, for example, DUI arrests shot up AND deaths from drunk driving dropped. Note that no one outlawed cars- or even drinking. Just putting the two together.

Why should it be harder to get good mental health care than to buy an assault rifle? Why are background checks for gun ownership so difficult? We do it for teachers and counselors. Is owning a gun so much of a right? Freedom of the press is just as constitutionally protected, yet we say there are times and places when there is such a thing as privacy and confidentiality limiting some of that. Why are firearms so sacred?

Perhaps in that last word is part of the problem. They have become sacred- a holy grail- inviolable- more important than human lives. They have become a god. There is the real, profound issue that no one can talk about. We have set up a false god that controls us. The power of the gun. No, not the gun lobby. The power of the gun. It is devouring our nation in its primal scream to survive.

I am not a gun owner. I don't believe I would ever own one. Protection? I wouldn't be able to use it for that. I would be so afraid of over-reacting and shooting someone I love by mistake. It happened locally here just a few weeks ago. Accidental deaths by guns may be more than were killed at Newtown.

I am not against gun ownership any more than I am against people owning cars or driving cars. Let's not over-react in either direction. But let's be sensible and reasonable about it. High-capacity weapons and clips controlled or banned; assault rifles made for the single purpose of killing people banned; background checks required. These are reasonable.

Is this politicizing the deaths on Connecticut? Yes. It was politicized the minute the shooter walked into the school. It is an issue of how resolute we can be to both protect lives and rights. We have to be able to do both. We remember the freedom of speech measurement- you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. That limits free speech just as libel laws limit it and the freedom of the press. Democracy is a delicate balance between rights and protection; freedom and life.

We can do it. We are a bright and caring nation. Let's use our ability to overcome the barriers to discussion and sane legislation. Too many ore people will die if we don't.

Protecting the Schools?

NRA: Armed Security in Every School

Actually, it does make a little sense. Kind of.

But it does not address the issue. The real issue.

Gun culture. Gun worship.

Armed security in every school?

Sure- until the next mass shooting

at a mall

or a place of worship

or a beauty spa.

I'm tired of the debate. It is time for action.

I will have more reflections on this next Friday. Until then let's refocus on peace. For all.

Reflections on Newtown - part two

Grace arrived on Sunday evening. Gathered in the high school auditorium in Newtown, CT, the power of community came forth. Clergy and representatives from diverse faiths and backgrounds, stood before national cameras and showed that power comes not from the big names and fancy titles, not from the pundits or professionals, but from everyday people. The pastors, the Rabbi, the young Muslim singing the prayer were just like you and me, living in a world like you and me, until Friday. Or perhaps even until a few minutes before the cameras came on Sunday.

As a clergy myself I realized that these were all like I would have been on Friday. Getting ready for my service. Doing my thing. Just living the vocation I was called to. No one out of the ordinary, unknown beyond my relatively small circle. They were then swept up in huge happenings. They were called to minister to a town devastated, even as they themselves were devastated. That in itself would have been enough.

But it wasn't.

They have now been called to minister to the nation across the cable and TVs of millions. We watched looking for the signs of grace. We listened, straining for the words of redemption.

I don't know about you, but I heard those words and saw that grace as they put arms around each other, as they solemnly, but confidently took their moment in the spotlight and pointed to others beyond them. I felt the pain of the Rabbi as he chanted the mourning of centuries. I experienced the weariness as they all seemed burdened by a weight that is not a normal daily load. They did so with humility and gratitude for the community they were a part of. Differences of faith and belief were at least momentarily swept away and we had a glimpse of the hope of the Kingdom of our Creator.


It was no longer the slaughter of the innocents. It was a tiny glimmer of light once again shining in the darkness of a very dark place. The secret to that grace is not just turning to God, it is also in turning to each other.

Community.

I use that word often. I try to live within that word often. I am not sure I can live without it. It is not always easy. But it is first and foremost in community that grace becomes apparent.

To the clergy and people of Newtown, CT, I give humble thanks. You have a long way to go, I am sure. Healing has hardly been able to break through such tragedy. But you have, as the President said, been an inspiration. Now you must face the coming days of sadness and dread beyond the spotlight or the unblinking eye of the camera. We will be watching, hopefully as part of your extended community and not voyeurs.

Go about your work now. Go about life as best you can. But do not give up on grace or community.

Your children and grandchildren will need it as much as you.

Peace.
Shalom.
Salaam.

Reflections on Newtown - part one

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                20 children - massacred

                                Grisly descriptions fill the airwaves

                Almost obscene in the details.

                A President stands with tears as

                Parents across the nation hug their own children

                                more closely than usual.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                A Biblical image that we often gloss over.

                It's right there- December 28-

                Right there in the calendar as part of

                                Christmas. But no one wants

                To go there. Not at the Season of Light in the darkness.

                Why be reminded of the darkness:

                                "Weeping and great mourning," says Scripture,

                                "Rachel weeping for her children.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                We wail and bemoan the state of the world and yet

                                Prepare for another Quentin Tarantino blood-soaked movie,

                We urge people to "Not get political" which means

                Do Nothing

                To slow the slaughter's flow of blood across the nation's landscape.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                Columbine                          Aurora

                Milwaukee                         Virginia Tech

                Shopping malls                  Factories

                                Sikh Temple and Beauty Spa

                There are no boundaries to slaughter in a culture mired in it.

                Innocents all - children and adults-

                                Bystanders to horrific history.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                I keep trying to clear the phrase and images from my mind.

                                Black clad gunmen, hiding their pathology

                                behind false strength and bullets.

                I sit listening to Bach or the hopeful seasonal music of

                                John Rutter.

                But Magnificats and Glorias sound hollow as the images of

                                traumatized children remain on the TV.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                Now I am caught up in the anger of the days. My Christmas world has been shattered. 
                                My peace on earth has been broken. I am caught in the

                Web of violence within by the events- inexplicable, but so deadly common-

                                on the evening news or movie screen.

                I shudder - cringe- at my own response. At my own anger at

                                the powerlessness- the inability to make a difference. The

                hurt- and then the fear that someone- anyone- could do the same right here

                                where I am sitting- at a mall bookstore.

                Newtown is anywhere- and potentially everywhere.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                I'm getting worn out. I can't imagine what the people of

                                Newtown must be feeling like. They are in need of healing.

                The wounds will go deep and broad, barely touchable

                                By anything available to them - or us- today.

                Untouchable by our words- the language of mere mortals.

                Only the grace of God may be able to bring about the healing.

                                But it is not the easy grace we often try to pass on,

                                The philosophical pablum that reduces God to less than

                Human, rather than greater than human.

                                It is not grace to say that God willed it, or even

                                Allowed it to happen for some unbelievably fearsome reason.

                No! This is a far more powerful grace. Not costly, like Bonhoeffer foresaw,

                                But awful. A grace that inspires awe- even as we cower in

                                Dread, anger, or hopelessness.

                The image comes of Bobby Kennedy on a chilly April night on the streets of Indianapolis

                                Giving us the words as he tried to make sense of

                                Martin Luther King's assassination, but his own brother's as well.

                They were the ancient words of Aeschylus:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart, until,

in our own despair,

against our will,

comes wisdom,

through the awful grace of God.

Written on Saturday, Dec. 15, the day after.

A Strange and Ambivalent Day

As I went to work this morning the American flag flying by the front door seemed brighter, lighter, more free. It was not just the westerly breeze. There was a sense of relief and closure that in the end, Osama bin Laden could not escape the "justice" of his own deeds.

We were just getting into bed last evening when our daughter called to tell us that there was going to be a news statement from Obama that bin Laden was dead. We got up and sat and watched. I was impressed by his fortitude and strength of conviction. He was highly presidential as he told us and the world that bin Laden had finally met his match.

An ending in so many ways to what began on 9/11/01. The mastermind of that horrific day is gone. Good riddance. No one else will suffer as a result of his actions. There was a sense of accomplishment in that. It has not been easy. He has become an icon of evil right there with Hitler and Stalin and Idi Amin. In the end good has triumphed over evil. Again.

But again the ambivalence. The celebration of someone's death- even with the sense of relief that it brought- somehow seemed out-of-focus. Mourning may have been appropriate- first in memory of those who lost their lives 10 years ago thanks to him and second for what his actions have led us to have to do. Did we have a choice? As a nation, I don't think so. Even as a pacifist I recognize that times and situations can cause us to HAVE to go against our morals and values and do things like this.

But that doesn't mean we have to like it and celebrate it as if it was a good thing. Bin Laden is gone- yes. But again our innocence has been trapped in the vortex of violence. A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is announcing his decision to attack and kill bin Laden. No, I don't believe he had a choice. Not as President. Pacifists don't (and won't) get elected President. But I am still saddened by it, even as I am relieved that bin Laden is gone.

No, I will not celebrate. I will react with sadness over the ongoing tragedies of wars of all kinds and violence of all styles. Even justified violence is still violence and makes us less than we can truly be. I am glad for Obama and the defeat of bin Laden. But I do not rejoice at death. Not that kind of death. Even when it is necessary.

Lord have mercy on us that we do not become more violent in our reactions but learn the ways of peace as best we can. When we fail- or are forced by circumstances to react in non-peace-filled ways- forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others.

God, bless us in our humanness and failings as much as in our love and care. Show us a better way- and bring your peace.

A Lone, Deranged Gunman

Isn't it always?

With the exception of a truly politically-based plot, it is always the solitary psychopath who does the dirty deed.

I mentioned some of them in a post a few days ago. Conspiracy theorists or not, Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone, deranged gunman. Even if he was put up to it, he was the one to do the deed because he was a lone, deranged gunman who could be manipulated.

Ditto- Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray.

Ditto- Ditto- Ditto-

An endless litany of the same thing. They are sick, deranged, crazed, irrational. It isn't about assault weapons, or maps with gunsights over congressional districts.

It is about a climate which can explode in violence in the sick, deranged mind of the lone gunman. It can be the voices he hears in his own head, or the way they are reinforced by voices from TV, radio, the Internet, or a cadre of people he hangs around.

It is the same climate which allows the Columbine killers to be brought to their murderous frenzy,the Red Lake killers, or Virginia Tech, or.....

No we will not eliminate such acts of violence. There will always be a Ted Kaczynski or Mark David Chapman. But we can step up to the plate and recognize that whenever we "demonize" our fellow human beings we are setting up a potential moment of violence. Whenever we feel that someone is lesser or worse or even bad because they disagree with us, we are fertilizing a deadly soil of hatred that cannot end anywhere but badly.

I don't want to pin the blame on Sarah Palin, the extreme Right or the extreme Left. I can only look inside myself and what I do on a daily basis and see the many ways I contribute to the mayhem without even knowing it. I can only change myself. The only way I can contribute fully to a better and more peaceful society is in how I treat myself and others. I know this can sound like a lot of Pollyanna-ish BS. But to believe anything else is to give in to the hopelessness that spawns such acts of violence.

I don't think I am done with all this pondering about this situation yet. More and more keeps rambling through this pacifist-brain. All I know is that I am more convinced than ever- even more so than when my own generation was being called to war in Vietnam- that violence can only produce violence. Hatred only hatred. Prejudice only prejudice. And all contribute to resentments, the poison that keeps on killing and killing.

Maybe we should all post this prayer in prominent places in our homes, offices-

and hearts.

The Peace Prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Some More Thoughts

We said it when JFK was killed. And when Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were killed. We said it again when George Wallace and Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were targeted.

And now we say it again with the tragedy in Tucson.

None of these by themselves actually cause these tragedies...

• Not loose gun control
• Not inflammatory rhetoric
• Not crazy political ideology
• Not extreme political divisions....

They all do it.

And you and I do it as we stand by and do nothing or get ourselves caught up in the uncivil discourse..

And our country's love affair with violence.

We will never have strict enough gun control to keep these from happening.
We will never quiet the extreme voices of our political insanity
We will never prevent the crazies from doing what they think is their right, whether it is the Unabomber, Squeaky Fromm, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, John Hinckley Jr, or Jared Loughner. Their particular ideologies will never be explainable or easily

But we can and should tone down the rhetoric. When the rhetoric and ideological extremism takes center stage it feeds on itself. Then the crazies get excited and they boil over. Most will use words and anger.

But some will take the matters into their own well-armed hands.

Sad, tragic, and perhaps, in the end unpreventable. But we can at least work to reduce the possibilities by making our nation what we like to say it is- a place of hope, and promise, and free speech done civilly.

For that may we all be in prayer.