Saturday, December 15, 2012

Healing Grace

(Disclaimer: Realize as you read this article that I intend no harm or ill will and that in my own way, I too am grieving along side our brothers and sisters for the tragic events of yesterday.  This is my own way of grieving and I mean no disrespect to anyone - I honestly mean only love).  Contemplating the significant tragic events and loss of innocent life we have witnessed of late, it would be too easy to lock ourselves into prisons of  fear wondering "what is this world coming to."  Such thoughts will only lead us to a place of pain and despair and will not help us to deal with our grief at these tragedies.  Human beings, since before the beginnings of recorded history have had a propensity towards both mental illness and violence.  In my mind, one definitively leads to another as only in a moment of deep insanity could a soul take the precious life of not one but too many children.  I will not go into too much detail about our very violent world history but do recall for the sake of context, the violent histories in which the blood of innocents has been shed many times.  Too many times.  The information super highways give us more details today than ever before and faster - it is nearly in real-time often.  A gift and a curse, perhaps.

I've heard, in a very short period, reactions from grief pushing even political agendas against the NRA, government, etc. as those at fault.  I understand such perspectives but the truth is, weapons, neglect and ignorance do not kill innocents and any approaches along those very limited lines are like a band aid and wholly useless at solving the heart of the problem.  Where mental illness goes unchecked to the point that people are driven to insane acts to become infamous, to get attention, to make some twisted tragic point, I can't help but feel like somewhere, we failed the insane soul.  This is not a blame the victim mentality.  This is my own questioning as to how we really get to the heart of the matter.  What is it that creates the violently insane?  How can we recognize it, how can we heal it or prevent it?  We as a race have, as I said, a propensity towards ill mental health.  Our various shades of a grip on reality creates so much fear, lack of love and true despair leaving some to feel so helpless, small and threatened that they snap.  That is not our faults, please don't think that is my perspective.  In my own grieving mind, I seek a core solution desperately because I do not wish one more innocent child to befall the tragic decisions of someone gone violently insane.

I think throughout history, there have been no easy answers and we stop the criminally violent with violence and look no further for the real problem to try to solve that.  To me that would by like ignoring the opportunity to do surgery to save a life and just killing them to stop the illness.  That doesn't make sense to me but I understand that in these cases sometimes meeting tragedy with tragedy seems like the only thing we are capable of.   I could go off into a million directions right here and now but it is by far too sensitive a time for that.  When I read the news yesterday and I heard the news updates later in the day, my heart broke and the tears flowed in abundance for the families who should be encouraging patience of bright eyed little ones excited for Christmas day who will now because of the act of a mentally ill man who resorted to tragic violence, will be making funeral arrangements for their children.  Not a parent in this world doesn't feel their pain and who does wish them all the love, strength, solace and healing in the world right now.  I cannot believe that ever in our history this kind of violence was necessary for anyone to learn but it is going to continue until we find a way to get at the heart of the matter.  So many human beings are abused, forgotten, mistreated, bullied, judged, belittled and destroyed to the point there is no return...sanity shaky sometimes for all of us on our best days, some of us humans cannot bounce back...and then there are those chemically challenged inside their own bodies to the point that solid mental health can never be a reality.  What can we do to detect and prevent this without completely eroding the civil liberties of the masses?  I don't know and I wish I did.  Gun laws don't solve the problem.  If you take away the guns, they'll just resort to other and more heinous weapons that cause greater damage and they can sadly and simply be made for those insane enough and driven enough to tragic ends.

How do we get to a place where we find the love that heals instead of the fear and personal desperation that permanently wounds? A clever phrase of a dear friend comes to mind - how do we as a race come to a place where we are not creating permanent solutions to only temporary problems? I don't think we've had too many answers to get to the root cause so, what if instead of spending time on worthless laws and things that do nothing to preserve life and liberty, we give some real and very serious thought to what all of the causes are and try to come up with ways to solve them?  In project management when we run across trending problems, we get our best and our brightest together to take a look at all factors that lead to failure, we use every available tool to identify the core of a problem at the heart of a trend, we brain storm potential solutions and try to come up with a plan to address whatever process or concept has failed.  The formula there is simple.  How is it we cannot do that as a race with the many problems we face?  How is it that we just sit back and act like victims?  Lives are taken and the lives around those souls are permanently shattered for the rest of their time on Earth.  Its a hard, hard and tragic thing to try to hold for any length of time as a decent human being.  It hurts so much, too much.  There is too much pain around it.  My heart grieves for the families of those who lost their lives yesterday...and all the families who have lost loved ones in tragedy after tragedy here in the Earth school.  May God bless every one of them with healing grace and love so that they may heal their anger, sadness and frustration for losing the most precious thing we have in this world, life.

A word of patience and tolerance before I go.  Consider this, after tragedies, emotions run high as people grieve so very differently.  Try, if you can, to engage in some patience and understanding as people deal with their grief.  Try if you can to be the voice of reason.  Try if you can to hold a space of love rather than anger and frustration.  Be a solid rock for those affected deeply by this tragedy.  Be a light for those going through the dark tunnels of grief so that they will make it to the light on the other side knowing they do not walk alone.  We are one race - the human race.  It is through the coming together in love and light that we can create miraculous changes.  ~ In much love and healing light do I greet this day.  In every quiet moment, I shall be sending healing energy and strength to all of the families dealing with this tragic event and all tragic events all over the world.  Lend your strength and energy too, if you can.  They need our strength just now.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo, fortunate random internet find)

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