More Reflections and Call to Action

OK, so I got a little heated in light of the VT tragedy. I didn't mean to be insensitive or callous. I'm simply trying to make sense of how this could happen like everyone else. I grabbed on to the gun control issue as a way of coping, of grieving. We have 20,000 laws dealing with guns in our country, so I don't know if one more will make any difference. My entire point, which you can see if you look past the wild ranting of an angry man, is that it's too easy. I don't think hunters and self-defense gun owners would argue that or should they have any trouble with federally mandated waiting periods and more extensive background checks. 90% of global homicide victims die in the United States. (alcohol, tobacco, and firearms website) 9 of 10! It's too easy, that's all I'm saying.

But, I'm not going to talk about this today. No gun control debate this time. Here's an idea: I'm responsible. Through my brother's blog http://www.entertherainbow.blogspot.com I've been reading some discussion as others try and deal with this in their own ways. Some private, personal reflections and some professional editorials. And here's the thought that stuck: I'm responsible. We all are. I asked Lindsey what she thought about the national day of mourning and she said a very wise thing: it's because we all felt this, we all know what sitting in french class is like, the innocense, and we all felt this. We all need to feel this, we need to feel the pain of the victims, their families, AND the survivors. Imagine going back into that classroom this week. There's a girl who was a freshman at Columbine High School when shooters massacred her classmates and now she's a student at Virginia Tech. We need to feel this. We need to feel the darkness in this young man's soul; we need to feel the anger, confusion, maybe illness, in his head that drove him to take so many human lives including his own.

But here's the kicker: We need to feel this not only when it's good, hard-working American college students; not only when it's 32 people and our talking-heads are foaming at the mouth to get some new angle on the story. Everytime one of our human brothers and sisters is killed by, or even affected by, violence, we should feel it. Whether it's a bunch of innocent college French students, a young man on 12 st. gunned down in the streets, a soldier who knew the risks she was taking joining an all-volunteer military, or a native citizen of Sudan executed by their own government's hired-gun...we should feel them all. Deep inside, we should feel them. But, so often, I glance over the headlines of human lives lost, I get impatient with the stories on the news because I wish they would get to the weather already. Two lines come to my head: Jack Johnson "Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die? Least they could be descent enough to put just a tear in their eye..." Our newscasters are paid and trained to deliver the facts without emotion, we want them to, that's their role. It's not our role! We should feel it. Second: Obi Wan Kanobi "I sense a great disturbance in the force." Ben felt the life force created by every living being disturbed whenever evil grew in power and strength. Every time one of our human family is victimized by violence, evil grows in power and strength. We should all be so connected, so filled with the love that God has for creation, that we feel a disturbance in the ties that bind us together every time one of our beloved falls. Every time.

And now, speaking of our human connection, I need to make a commercial. This Friday evening, starting at 5 or 5:30 there is a rally for peace in the Darfur region of Sudan in Mill Creek Park, near the plaza. If you've been glancing over these headlines like I have been, I've done a little research. Darfur is a region in the African country of Sudan. Now, there's been civil war and infighting in Darfur for years, but there's never been anything on the scale of what's going on now. The Sudanese military, alongside the government-funded mercenary militias called Janjaweed, have marched through Darfur, killing over 400,000 people and displacing over a million. I looked up the difference between displaced and refugee. Refugees are people who have crossed a border into another country and the UN has declared them refugees, meaning they were forced out of their own country AND meaning that they have certain rights within the new country. Displaced means that they haven't left the country, usually because the army that displaced them has closed the borders. These are people whose homes are gone, destroyed, and whose ONLY source of survivals needs comes from the very little humanitarian aid that other nations can get in to them. If anyone has seen Hotel Rwanda or The Last King of Scotland (both excellent movies, must sees), This is happening right now in Sudan. We, the US/the UN, didn't do anything in Rwanda and hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered. We didn't do anything to stop Edi Amin, and hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered. If we don't do anything now, millions of people are going to die. But, dadgummit, we had to stop Saddam Hussien and his unbelievable access to weapons of mass destruction!
So, if you're in the KC area this Friday evening, please come down to the park next to the plaza, to help show support of those brothers and sisters who have lost their lives and lost their homes.

Alright, folks. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world. I didn't even talk about our Attorney General saying "I don't remember" 71 times under oath and our president saying "If anything, I'm more confident in him" afterwards. Idiots.

Peace, my friends, B