Numb To The Violence

I drove my son, Ben, to the bus this morning. It is a short, two minute, drive. Along the way I tried, as I do many days on that trip, to express a thought or idea. I try to leave him with a few words to ponder. I guess I’m hoping his sleepy mind will receive messages more easily than his active and awake mind which as a boy of nearly 15 is increasingly poised for mental combat with his parents, God Bless him. Usually I tell the boy to “Do great things today.” We are always preaching how hard it is to stand up for what is right, and I hope that message might encourage a protective instinct for others in him. Then of course there are the grades. Ben gets good grades, but his mother and I know quite well he is capable of better.  So the word “focus” comes up quite often in our two minute drives.

This bright and sunny morning, after watching as a family a few minutes of coverage of the Boston tragedy, I found it difficult to maintain and control my emotions.  “Bastards”, I thought. Mother fucking, bastards. The violence is as usual horrific. Three deaths and apparently scores of people maimed. Two brothers, roofers, waiting for a friend, each lost a leg. One, calling his mother from the ambulance, said, “I’m hurt real bad, Ma.”  I’m thinking of how many calls there were like that.  I read a posting on Twitter last night, a young woman, looking for another young woman, a runner. The post said the runner did not speak English. Poor woman was look frantically for her friend.  I can taste every horrible memory of 9-11 this morning.  The recollections are as fresh and as acrid as if it was yesterday.

For a brief moment in 2001 I harbored some hope that the horrific events at the World Trade Center, In Washington, and Pennsylvania, might lead to some soul searching. As I stood outside the Ed Sullivan Theatre that day, wandering to find a way home, I remember telling my wife, that there was just so much "hate in this world". In the days that followed we would learn that there was more love that day, more sacrifice than we might ever imagine. So many gave their all so that others might live. I have often wondered if in some ways all those fire fighters and first responders weren't in some ways crucified  so that others could be saved.

This morning as I stared blankly out my window into the gathering light, I thought of the images I have seen of the children killed by American drone strikes across the arc of the Southeast Asia. If we can imagine for a moment that we are all human beings, children of some god, before we are Americans or Pakistanis or Yemenis, we might for a moment imagine the horror of those parents. I keep thinking about a thought, or an image of Dr. King, I can’t really recall which, but it was after some moment of violence in the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King often questioned whether “we”, the collective we, really what I think he saw as the soul of the country, were ready for change.  He worried that the Non-Violent movement he led was in fact inspiring violence. Thank God, he was wise enough to continue. Ultimately I think he saw Non-Violent civil disobedience and the violence it often confronted as a necessary purification.  He knew we were not clean. He knew he himself was not clean, so he sought to purify his soul through sacrifice. But I wonder this morning are we ready for change? How much more violence is required so that man can see reconciliation as the more preferred course. This morning, it is painfully clear we are not even close.

Eventually Dr. King sacrificed everything for us, for humanity, for the world, and still we are not pure. If you believe in the Bible, your spiritual fountain is fed by the certain knowledge that Jesus sacrificed everything for us. We are told that his blood is our purification, but we are not pure. The human soul is stained with violence. We are numbed to its presence in our lives.

I have good friend, Steve. I told him a few months back, after some terrible tragedy—I can’t remember which—that perhaps Judaism, his faith, was more logical than Christianity, the faith in which I was raised. We are often so violent towards each other, often times so dismissive of our shared humanity. The light in them is no different than the light in us, yet we often times barely perceive it. I remember telling Steve that maybe it is more logical that the messiah has yet to arrive, maybe the Jews are closer to the truth. It’s hard for me at least to think how little we have done with the teachings of Jesus, especially to love one another as ourselves, when I consider the human condition which is all too often tolerant of violence as an acceptable means of defining and advancing our cause in conflict. Is it possible now, 2,000 years after the birth of Christ, this world is all we can show for that miracle?

20 children are killed in a school in Connecticut and one of us rises up and says the solution of this heinous act is to bring more of the destructive tools of violence into proximity of our children. Six worshippers are gunned down in a Temple in Oak Creek Wisconsin. In response some states pass laws that allow people to bring their concealed weapons to their places of worship. We are so lost. I know myself I have had to fight the urge to hate. The flickering image of LaPierre, the money changer for the arms manufacturers, so often makes me think of the word hate. In response I have poured over Dr. King’s words these past weeks. I just reread the Letter from the Birmingham Jail ( 50 years old this week). Perhaps Dr. King’s words and his spirit have kept me from uttering the word hate, but my soul is bitterly wounded by the shameless greed of La-Pierre’s argument.

So I asked Ben today to consider the mothers and fathers of those children killed by drones. I told him I worried that the nature of our violent world—one which we are often told is so less violent than in the past—will leave him and his friends in a so much more confusing place. I cried a little. He asked if I was OK. Yes, I lied. I mentioned briefly that I could not understand how anyone could suggest that more guns were an answer to Newtown or Aurora.  I told him to do great things. And then I drove back home, numb to the Violence.

Peace…

It so happens that this is social activism week at he school Ben attends. Today's event is a day long fast in honor and recognition  of those who have less than us. My wife and I decided to fast to honor Ben's sacrifice. As a family we will be thinking about the events in Boston, praying for peace, hoping for purification.