Another mass shooting yesterday…another school assaulted….unbearable pain for the kids and families…agony in our hearts…we send prayers to Florida, and at the same time feel helpless that this is all we can do….
We all share the same wounded scream to the heavens:
“WHY, GOD? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?”
And also:
How can we prevent these atrocities?
Here are some reflections on those questions (because that is all I can do…):
There is nothing more basic than the need for safety – food, shelter, family (of some kind), social bonds…a civilization where we connect and lead meaningful lives…
We also need psychological safety within ourselves; the sense that we can handle the tough challenges life throws our way…
And we need love. Love is safety too.
So these shooters – what are they doing?
The shooter is a human being, and the spiritual core of the human being is love – but the shooter is destroying love, destroying us, destroying himself…
He attacks places that embody safety and love and society…foundations of our psychological and physical existence: when the shooter assaults a school, he is a living screaming unholy message: There is no safety! No family, no society! There is no Love!
We all depend on each other for love – we are doing it now, in the aftermath of this latest abomination…
Some of us experience this whole world as a human family, responsible for each other, connected to each other at a fundamental level – sharing an earth in a flow of life, an infinite exchange of energy (food, rain, waste, resources, ideas, love) that is oblivious to our superimposed tribal identities (religion, country, political party, income, education, profession)…
Others of us get everything we need (psychologically) from these tribal identities – as long as these tribes meet our immediate needs, we’re OK!
But one of the great laws of physics – that does not care about our ego-erected creations – is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
And so when tribes are created based upon “us vs. them” – whether nations or gangs or religions or income levels –
When the culture and art and technology created by these tribes exploits this sense of “I’m right because you are wrong – I’m smarter because you are stupid – I’m strong because you are weak – and I will dominate and destroy you!” –
And when we bring violence into our families – through hard words and fighting and wounding and judgement and selfishness and blame and narcissism and any other toxic negativity where there should only be love love LOVE –
….When we do all this –
…Then we create the reality: there is no safety, no family, no society! Which wounds all the hearts and souls and spirits who have come into awareness open hearted with the tender need to drink from these watering holes, as is their nature, our nature –
And this sets in motion that unstoppable “Action – Reaction” process, of pain projected outward, that can only end in catastrophe…somewhere down the line, sooner or later, in the great chain of events, in that cosmic web we are always weaving…
And then this primal agony gets reflected back to us in the horrific destruction that devastates us all…
Mental illness is still a mystery, although we know many more details about its chemical and psychological mechanics than we ever have…
And there is truth in the uncomfortable sense we all share: that in human life as we know it, horror simply exists, it is , as part of a great cosmic order beyond our comprehension…
So indeed, there may be only so much we can do to prevent deranged individuals from aligning with the forces of spiritual destruction –
BUT ALSO – there is also a lot we can do!
By really taking responsibility for looking more deeply: at what Love needs at every level, macro and micro, of our interconnected shared space, even in ways that may not seem so obvious until we break through the clouds of our taken-for-granted perceptions and positions…
…And I wonder if the more we do, the more it becomes possible to create a healing transformation at the most basic structural levels of society, as we learn how our seemingly unrelated thoughts and actions really can affect a healing change that spreads outwards like blood and oxygen and nourishing food through the body of society, of our human family, that exists…well, why?
Why does it exist?
Here is a verse (49:13) translated from the Holy Quran – which is regarded as the Word of God by many, many different tribes, just as many different documents are looked to in the same way by many other tribes – all searching to know the same God, that master consciousness we all share and influence and co-create even as we are only the playthings and shadows of Divine expression, of the Real behind the illusion:
O mankind! We created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that ye may despise each other).
Tribes! God created tribes! (Even if you don’t believe in God, you see this reality, right?)
And this is Why He created them – to know each other – to not despise each other – do you believe this?
Societal change can only be rooted in us as individuals – of course!
…In our own personal minute-by-minute choices…
….Within our families, as members of our various tribes…and within our own space of psyche and energy and mystery…
…That ultimately we – only ourselves – each one of us! – are responsible for….
Because we are all in this together!
Relationship Rescues and Personal Breakthroughs