We love drawing lines. We seem so fascinated with celebrating differences that single ourselves out, we wind up drawing lines everywhere. The intent is to show why we are different from everyone else and our needs must be separately recognized, acknowledged, and accommodated.
The problem is that with every line we draw, someone else is on the other side of the line. And when we face people across lines, we accentuate what's different. And we seem hell bent on attacking those that are different than we are.
We need fewer lines, and more standing together.
We love fire power. Maybe it's a fascination with the Old West and the strong guy (or the bad guy) shooting themselves out of problem situations. Maybe it is real fear and thinking we never want to be in a position where we don't have as much ability to harm others as they have to harm us.
The problem is when we both have guns, we have shoot outs. Why else do we need guns in situations having nothing to do with anything other than harming someone else? We go right past all the ways we should have to interact with each other in the interests of being able to threaten each other more effectively.
We need fewer guns and more readiness to meet each other with listening, understanding, and kindness.
Even more than loving guns, we generally love killing. Our laws and courts have spent the last forty-plus years making it easier to kill others and ourselves on both ends of life. We’ve established killing as an integral right as citizens. And since we can’t get enough real life killing, we also love killing spread throughout all types of entertainment.
The problem is we can’t immerse ourselves in a culture of real and imaginary killing and think we aren’t changed by it. Life seems casual. Life seems expendable. Life seems anything but sacred. In many cases, the lives of others are costs to society that we need to kill off to make sure we don’t have to sacrifice what we believe should rightfully be ours.
We need to remember all our lives originate and end in the same place. We can’t sit by as others are killed without opening doors to others killing us if we’re obstacles to their aspirations.
You see statistics showing fewer people believe in God. Fewer people practice organized religion. Yet, people are bowing down to idols of all types: money, fame, sex, self-determination, eternal youth, killing, sports. That's just a start. We are better all the time at filling the place God would take in our lives with things we have created ourselves.
The problem is that we, as the human race, don't have things covered. The more we've moved away from God to chart our own courses, the more we seem to be sinking into worsening cycles of failure and despair.
We need more belief and prayer in God, who can truly help us out of our mess. – Mike Brown
