Sunday, November 15, 2015

Fear

...and yet again, there is another set of horrific events, perpetrated by people using religion as justification, that has horrified the world....and yet again, there are calls to retaliate....and calls to arms....and calls to keep the "them" away from the "us". Social media is a awash with posts about whose fault it is that ISIS/ISIL/whateverthehelltheycallthemselves exists or hasn't been squashed yet, how Islam must be stopped, how Bush/Cheney created the conditions for ISIS, and/or how Obama has screwed up everything up....and blah....blah....blah.

In a word: Fear. A lot of people around the world are afraid. That manifests in anger more often than not. But fear is the underlying driver. And that is to be expected. But it is exhausting. Personally, I fear the fearful as much as anything. Its times like these that the "not so better angels" among us get a foothold in the collective psyche.

As much as I would like to add my own $0.02 to the discussion about how we got to this point in human affairs (I will only say "dig deeper and look at the evolution of history beyond just your own lifetime"), I will try to refrain as that would, in the end, only be my variation of processing the fear.

Rather than participate in the fear, I'm going to see what I can do today as I sit in a hotel room far from home on a rainy Oregon Sunday...do something that, at the least, won't contribute to the fear and negativity.....like find a church near by and attend amongst strangers....buy a homeless person lunch...go to Powells book store and buy a book...go see the Peanuts movie...meditate...listen to John Coltrane...and PRAY.....

Yes, I'll pray for Paris (like 99% of Twitter/Facebook-land seems to be doing), but I'll pray for Beirut as well.....and for Russia......and for Syria......and the refugees fleeing Syria....and for Libya....and for Israel....and for the Eagles of Death Metal....and for ISIS (yup, I went there, just like Jesus told me to do)....I'll pray for the whole damned world (i.e. "us")....

Yup, that's what I'm choosing to do today.