Thursday, September 30, 2010

Some Days the News Just Sucks -- Suicides, Homophobia, Callousness

Jesus, today was a tough day! I started the day reading about the suicide rate in the military being quadruple the national average, with four suicides at Fort Hood this past week. Then I read about a college student who killed himself after his room mate and another friend filmed and then posted on line his sexual encounter with another man. Humans perpetrate such evil against each other every day just for the twisted joy of causing someone a public humiliation. Can we really be God's children and be so base, so lacking in concsience, so callous about another person's feelings, struggles and social stigmas.

My first thought...stop reading the news. It will make your day less stressful.

Well, thanks for that. But I'm not sure that's much help.

What did you do after you read the news?

What do you mean?

Did you go out and treat someone you met with kindness and compassion, treat them as as if they were the young man who took his life out of shame?

No, I got in my car and drove to work angry and probably cursed out a few drivers on the way. Then I spent the day feeling angry about everything around me and how my boss doesn't respect my work and how life stinks.

So evil has won in you today. You allowed evil to become a part of who you are and you communicated anger and therefore brought more "evil" into the world around you.

The whole transference thing, huh! I'm sorry! What would you have had me do. Sing Kumbaya and hand out free cookies to the homeless?

You are obviously still angry. What does that say about you? Why are you allowing the evil done to someone else to corrupt your joy?

And what is wrong with singing joyful songs and giving something to eat to a stranger. I saw you yesterday at the Simchat Torah service watching the dancing. You didn't join in. Maybe you need to dance more, to create joy around you, and to join in when joy presents itself to you.

Perhaps this weekend you need to go and have some fun and be around art and music and creativity and people being good and kind. It will raise your opinion of the human race. Then maybe you should go to a service somewhere and sing, you know how good music cheers you up. And you must realise that if you drive a car angry and get in a wreck and hurt someone, it won't matter then what it was that made you angry in the first place, because now you have created a brand new evil yourself by your anger, not someone else's anger.

So...what you're saying is...I can't help that young student who killed himself but I can make sure not to hurt another young person struggling with his or her sexual identity by not participating in jokes aimed at minorities and gays. And I can choose to be joyful and kind and non-judgemental myself and not add to the anger and evil. And --- I shouldn't drive angry.

Sure, if that is what you heard me say, fine! It's a start.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Miracles

I've been thinking about miracles a lot recently. So many various viewpoints. From, It is possible to see God in all things, so everything is, in a sense, a miracle. To, A miracle is when God intervenes in our lives or in history and suspends the laws of the physical universe in order to bring about a different outcome than the one that was expected. So which one is right?

Maybe if you tell me what it is you are struggling with I can help.

How about a straight answer.

I think you are forgetting the basic premise of this conversation: I only know what you know.

Alright. Let's talk about your miracles, specifically. I know you have said that there were lots of people who were sick and hungry and suffering but are you saying you didn't heal anybody?

I don't want to make trite statements about what happened. These were moments of grace. There was a stillness in the chaos for just a moment. The "fear of the Lord" is the beginning of wisdom, according to the prophets, and I think some people were afraid. But what I felt in those moments, and what the prophets meant, was not fear in the "scared of" sense, but awe.

But these were rare moments. There were also times when I felt frustrated and impotent. I couldn't save John, my own cousin. I couldn't protect my mother from heart-break. Miracles, whatever one calls them, didn't define who I was. They were not ordinary or common events; they were the exception. Moments when God's love and healing broke through directly. I felt it, others felt it.

Is this the end of the world as we know it?

Song lyrics aside, is this the end of the world as we know it? So much chaos, destruction, disaster. In America alone we have forest fires and oil rig explosions and now threats of Qur’an burning. Fire and brimstone, indeed. What's going on, Jesus?

Did you know that they built a whole village in Russia in just one week following a recent disaster? The houses were even better than the ones before, now they have electricity and plumbing.

And did you know, oh Optimistic One,  that it looks very like it was just a big publicity stunt?

You mean there are no houses?

No, the houses are real but they have cameras all over the village so they can broadcast to the rest of the country how great the government is.

Well, it looks to me like the government did do something pretty damn good! Doesn’t it make you wonder how it is that in America the government can't build houses in Louisiana or Mississippi for those who were left with a slab of concrete and some MRE's? And doesn't it seem ludicrous in the land of milk and honey that it is the Hollywood celebrities (a group second only to politicians in the public polls of most likely to screw up morally and most superficial and self-serving) and not the government who managed to get something actually built?

Hmm! Bit political, don't you think?

If by politics you mean “concerned with the people” then yes. I am all about politics. But if you mean party politics, then no….party politics seems to be mainly a matter of public grandstanding for the sake of private gain. I focus more on the big picture. The advantage of distance, it gives one perspective.

So, back to the end of the world question.

I really didn’t leave the question. It’s all about big picture perspectives. If you focus on specific bad events you tend to miss all the amazing good events – the good news! There are people building houses because someone needs shelter. New drugs and treatment protocols for cancer and other diseases. People walking and demonstrating and donating to so many good causes, standing up to corruption, demanding justice. I see so much hope and virtue, courage and commitment to the good.

Wow! Hope and virtue. Not what most people see when they look at the world.

Ah … as a wise young man once said, “Perspective is everything.” 

And the end of the world, 2012, all that?

We’ll talk again later.