out of balance…
after hearing the disappointing, though not surprising news that the Senate Republicans wouldn’t pass gun legislation that bans persons on the terrorist watchlist from buying weapons and expands background checks, even though the majority of their constituents are in favor of this commonsense legislation, i decided to take a brisk walk in 99° weather.
is brisk the right adjective?
just think if i had heard the news earlier in the day when it was 106°. looks like i dodged a…
the thing is, i have been reading articles and essays all week long both pro and con. i’ve sat with this all week long, really trying to be open and listen, meditating with it. i’m not one of those people that wants to force his views on other people. if that were the case, none of you would be eating meat and you would take time out of your day to hug a tree every once in a while. and although i don’t personally like guns, i understand that they have a use at times in the world that we live in. i do understand that some people still enjoy hunting, even if they need not do it. i understand that some people want to have a weapon to defend their home and their loved ones. i respect and defend that “right” even as i think the Second Amendment is poorly interpreted (where is this well regulated militia with their guns they have the right to bear?).
here’s the thing, though. no “right” is absolute. although i have the “right” to free speech i cannot defame someone or incite violence. and when a “right” falls out of balance, infringing upon the rights of others to a degree that is gross and negligent, and causing irrevocable harm or death – then things are out of balance. we are out of balance. and when we aren’t speaking about taking guns away, but simply asking that we keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them, but we cannot even come together on that and agree – then things are out of balance. we are out of balance.
there will always be people who are mentally ill, or who are hateful, or angry, or a terrorist. we cannot possibly stop, or heal every possible person who may commit such an act is what we have seen. but we can make it more difficult and we can withhold weapons that can do mass destruction, and cause mass casualties. my intelligence is insulted every time someone brings up the car analogy. cars were not built to kill. with proper training I could probably kill someone with the phone that I have in my hand (can someone show me how to do that? just kidding) but, the phone was not designed or created so that I can kill someone…thankfully, because i’d hate to break my vow of non-harming. you have no idea how many spiders i’ve caught and released.
some people say that none of this is the point. they claim it is a matter of principle. But if it is a matter of principle, even then, some principles outweigh others… how much do 49 lives weigh? or 26? or 14? Or the many others who will carry both physical and emotional scars for the rest of their lives?
we can’t even find out the weight, because Congress bowing to NRA pressure will not allow the CDC to study gun violence or gun death. i’m too lazy to study, let them study for me.
at some point we have to drop all of what we have created and remember what was here before us, before what we created. Life. that’s the principle that i intend to stand with. and fight for. out of love, with fierce compassion, i vow to promote life.
silly Buddhist.
~j
calling all the healers, it is your time…
to those willing to pause before reacting, to breathe before speaking, it is your time…
to those willing to lay down their weapons whether they be guns or words, it is your time…
to those willing to keep their hearts open to vulnerability and their eyes open to pain, it is your time…
this call is for you, the healers – the willing.
those willing to do and embody what is needed now to heal and not further perpetuate suffering. those who are willing to stand in the face of fear, confusion and anger to transform them, rather than be ruled by them.
even as we may understand that there are at times specific needs for military or law enforcement, let us also bring a counter balance to those who call for more guns, more violence, more anger, and more fear.
may we bring healing through our work, through our art, our words, our every breath.
~j
“We’ve entered this new era, and we have to be planning for healing just as carefully as others are planning for destruction.” – Omid Safi
BY OMID SAFI(@OSTADJAAN), ON BEING COLUMNIST
Friends keep asking me where we find hope in these turbulent times. We don’t. We don’t find hope. We generate it.
Hope is like sanctity and community. Hope doesn’t descend down to us from heaven. It rises to heaven from right here on Earth.
As Warsan Shire says, it hurts everywhere, everywhere. As Parker Palmer says, even the healers are wounded healers.
We need to have a national and global conversation about faith that prepares us to carry on the work of healing so that we can be prepared when these atrocities hit us. This is the new normal. There are going to be Paris attacks, Beirut attacks, Baghdad attacks, Nigeria attacks, and more in the months and years to come. The work of healing is needed now, more than ever.
The atrocities are “events.” The healing has to be an ongoing, everyday journey. This healing work actually has to come before the atrocities, through the atrocities, and after the atrocities.
We’ve entered this new era, and we have to be planning for healing just as carefully as others are planning for destruction.
We’re simply, by necessity, now in an era of global processes of healing. As others have said, we’re all wounded, so we’re wounded healers now.
Everyone hurts — though not all hurt in the same way. Everyone has a role in healing — though not everyone is ready to heal.
turn, as I do so often, to the very heart of our faith traditions for hope. I remember the Qur’an saying that the ease, the healing, comes not after the difficulty but with it.
We cannot wait to be wounded before we turn to heal. We have to anticipate the healing, generate the healing, raise up the healing.
I remember Rumi’s words:
The wound is where the light enters you.
I see wounds. I see the wounded. And I see the wounders (who often carry their own wounds).
In an age when violence is broadcast widely, when the quickest way to fame is to say something vacuous and pungent How do we make the healing visible? How do we recover love as a public virtue? In the midst of this tragedy, I keep searching for hope, still my own heart to keep generating hope For myself For my children For all of us Where do we find hope? Mostly hope, courage, resistance are invisible. Hope’s never linear, rarely public, usually tender and private. Every now and then, we see examples of hope that become visible.
I want to shine a light on these moments — to remember, to rejuvenate, to recall — when the goodness shines on through, and reminds us of the need to keep generating hope.
Let me share one such moment from Paris. The moment of light is from a husband, Antoine Leiris, whose wife, Hélène Muyal-Leiris, was killed in the attacks. In his response, there is grace and dignity. It reminded me of Mamie Till, holding an open-casket funeral for her son Emmett, both for the world to see her suffering become public, and also to say that she had no time to hate, and would devote herself steadfast to seeking justice.
The husband released a statement to the ISIS terrorists: You have taken away the love of my life, a beautiful woman. You seek to get me to hate you, but I will not give you that satisfaction. I will not give you the satisfaction of having your hatred be mirrored in my heart. You, and your action, will not determine the kind of human being I will strive to be.
Here’s the transcript of the message from the husband, posted on Facebook. The original message was in French, here is an English translation:
“On Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you won’t have my hatred.
I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know — you are dead souls. If this God for which you kill indiscriminately made us in his own image, every bullet in the body of my wife will have been a wound in his heart.
So no, I don’t give you the gift of hating you. You are asking for it but responding to hatred with anger would be giving in to the same ignorance that made you what you are.
You want me to be afraid, to view my fellow countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have lost.
I saw her this morning. Finally, after many nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago.
Of course I’m devastated with grief, I admit this small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know she will accompany us every day and that we will find ourselves in this paradise of free souls to which you’ll never have access.
We are two, my son and I, but we are stronger than all the armies of the world.
I don’t have any more time to devote to you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is barely 17-months-old. He will eat his meals as usual, and then we are going to play as usual, and for his whole life this little boy will threaten you by being happy and free. Because no, you will not have his hatred either.”
Here is what we often do not understand about the power of nonviolence in an uber-violent world. Nonviolence is not so much about “turning the other cheek” or responding to violence with a refusal to return violent action. That is simply the start. It is, simply, the minimum. It is actually more profound, as the widower husband says:
“So no, I don’t give you the gift of hating you. You are asking for it but responding to hatred with anger would be giving in to the same ignorance that made you what you are.”
Real nonviolence is the adamant insistence that we will choose to live a life of dignity, beauty, and meaning. That we will not get drowned in a whirlpool of hatred and violence.
The father ends by saying that he would say more, but that he has to go take care of his toddler, a toddler that now only has one parent to raise him.
Yes, we have children to raise,
parents to love,
friends to hug,
neighbors to reach out to,
inner-cities to heal,
and refugees to shelter.
There is real work to be done, genuine healing, which we have to generate.
The truth is actually much harder, and more beautiful than a simple refusal to return violence for violence. That would be akin to cursing a dark night already devoid of stars.
To curse the darkness, to bring more anger and rage into this world, is to let the terrorists win. It is to let the terror inside our own hearts win.
Healing begins by a commitment to letting light shine. We have to generate this light, this hope this healing and mirror it to each other. Let your light shine. Let’s heal each other, fellow wounded healers. We are in this together. http://www.onbeing.org/blog/omid-safi-where-do-we-find-hope-after-paris/8164
“I hold my face in my two hands. No, I am not crying. I hold my face in my two hands to keep the loneliness warm – two hands protecting, two hands nourishing, two hands preventing my sould from leaving me in anger.”
“…remember: man is not our enemy…the only thing worth of you is compassion – invincible, limitless, unconditional. Hatred will never let you face the beast in man.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
December 14th 2013
here we are. a year later.
my heart is still clinging to the lost lives of 20 innocent children. see their faces. know their faces. children who someday may have been artists, doctors, teachers, scientists, or parents with children of their own. what inventions have we missed out on? how many discoveries will have to wait? how many inspired dreams will look to find a new home – a new vehicle of birth into this world?
questions, we’ll never know the answer to.
6 innocent adults died that day as well. see their faces, know their faces.
bodies beyond recognition.
and a lone gunman also lost, even it seems before his horrific actions of that day. see his face, know his face.
such a tragedy, such a dark moment. 27 lives lost, and how many more disturbingly wounded?
and here we are a year later with not much more than our grief, our frustration, and a polarized people frozen in their views. aren’t we better than this?
we must get to a place where we can listen – listen. where we can dialogue without scapegoating the mentally ill, without scapegoating the media, without scapegoating responsible gun ownership. we must open our awareness to recognize that the issue of violence in our culture runs much deeper than any vehicle in which it is carried out. we must open our awareness to recognize that the issue of violence in our culture is much more subtle and therefore insidious than quick quotes or talking points that serve as distraction from the deep listening, the deep looking, the deep contemplation that is needed to bring healing and wholeness to our broken attempts at problem solving and our inability to find balance between privileges and rights. we must be open to seeing how violence lives not only in our actions, but in our words and thoughts…we must look to where this violence is born and how it feeds.
we must come to a place where the news of 20 massacred children at an elementary school stops us cold in our tracks, convicting our hearts into a response so urgent, so necessary that it calls upon our betters selves to deep reflection that motivates us into action. not action out of reaction and fear or hatred or bitterness, but action out of empathy, out of interdependence and sense of community. it must be action out of compassion to end suffering at all costs, not perpetuation through the same deluted ideas and philosphies. action that says – these lives, our children’s lives – life itself – is worth more than the pitiful energy we have given them so far.
if we can’t get to this place, this place of necessary coming together, this place that recognizes the shared responsibility we have in honoring what we so often and emptily claim as sacred – life, then i do believe more is at risk than any rights or privileges. i do believe we are at risk of not only losing the very heart and soul of this country, but what is the unique manifestation of the divine that is us – our humanity.
life will go on, of course. it always goes on.
but if we fail to rise to this challenge, to open our wounded hearts, to stand in the face of violence, to look into the eyes of fear –
life very well may look to another vessel with which it can share love, seeing no vacancy in hearts that already have a love affair with violence.
and then we will finally know what it is to be in hell, because we will have chosen to hold it in our closed hearts.
i recently read that gun sales were up triple in 2011 of what they were in 2010. what does this say?
who are we arming ourselves against?
what are we arming ourselves against?
i am reminded of one of my favorite Zen stories…it is as follows:
A village was warned that a vicious warlord and his soldiers were coming to destroy the town, so they all fled. All except one old monk, that is, who stayed meditating in the temple. When the warlord came in and saw him, he drew his sword, pointed it at his heart and said angrily, “Don’t you know I can run you through without batting an eye?!” The old monk looked up at him and calmly replied, “And don’t you know that I can be run through without batting an eye?” The warlord bowed before the presence of this old monk and left. Such courage, composure, and non-attachment can be ours.
namaste, dear friends.
peace to you as we wake up to this spacious and available place of nonviolence and no fear – as we wake up to who we are!
The Metta Garden 