How can this keep happening?
That was my immediate thought upon hearing the tragic news of this latest school shooting that took place yesterday in my home state of Connecticut.
The unthinkable has happened again, this time at an elementary school – 26 dead, 18 of them children, at the time of this writing.
The details, I’m sure, will keep trickling out for weeks to come.
But the heartbreak is here and now, and the wounds of such trauma run incredibly deep for the families whose lives have just changed irrevocably.
And even though in our work as practitioners we’re seeing (and trying to help heal) the scars of trauma every day, tragedies like these can wound our spirits and grieve our hearts as well . . .
. . . but we also hope that it will strengthen our resolve – all of us – to keep reaching out with compassion and healing and belief in the basic good of the human spirit.
Sandy Hook Elementary, our hearts go out to you and our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Tragedy,,sad
People kill, whether it be guns, cars, knives or as in Columbine, they had propane tanks to blow up.
How about fire. Man can kill with many different weapons.
Maybe we have an armed cop on campus. Disarming us lets the criminal have power. Criminals will always have guns no matter what ban or law you create.
We live in a violent society, we have many schools in the poor ghettos where safety does not exist. We spend so much on education and get so little in return these days.
The solutions for mass killers are none. We have an open society and that makes us susceptible to violence, terrorism. Even people using planes to kill people and I see planes are not banned.
I am having a very difficult time coming to terms with this. Thankfully, my children do not attend school in Sandy Hook, however, my heart goes out to those parents. Every morning, I have a knot in my stomach letting my kids go off to school. I agree that mindfulness should be taught in schools. This might be one solution to a very big problem that we have in our country. We have to teach our children to care for one another and practice what we preach. Love your children, hug and kiss them everyday and be thankful that you have them!
GET RID OF THE GUNS!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, cause that has worked so very well in England?! Where your govt is now trying to outlaw KNIVES?! And your police have quit even *writing down*, much less investigating, so many crimes, including violent ones?! How well has your tight gun control worked at controlling the CRIMINAL’S access to guns?
Oh, right, not at all! Yeah, great choice!
Worried today that the tears will flow when I look into the beautiful faces of my little ones in class.
Knowing that the other teachers and I would take a bullet for any one of them.
Realizing that there are so many good people in this world.
The world is not broken.
We must not let the numbness, anger and avoidance of vicarious traumatization burden us to the point of not taking action. Action begins with self — finding and transmuting the non-peaceful within which leads out to finding ways to compassionately interact with the isolation and mistrust of those in our midst — and do something about it. We will not be able to control all acts of violence, but we will be able to exert a peaceful influence with our open-heart and thoughtful choices. Mindfulness in schools, board rooms, agencies, governments, manufacturers, houses of worship, homes, stores, everywhere. Educate educate educate. Work towards the de-stigmatization of mental health troubles and mental illness — 1 in 4 people suffer with a mental health issue at any given time. Let’s not just get rallied up when there are mass shootings — kids are killed every day by random shootings and by people who are supposed to be caring for them. Visualize peace and work for gun control. Support sanity. Maybe it is time high to promote Dennis Kucinich’s idea about a Cabinet of Peace in our government — and we can start right here in the United States, at the doorsteps of our schools.
“We must not let the numbness, anger and avoidance of vicarious traumatization burden us to the point of not taking action. … Work towards the de-stigmatization of mental health troubles and mental illness … Visualize peace and work for gun control. Support sanity.”
“…not taking action.” Any action at all? Any action whether it’s effective or detrimental? Any action that feels good, whether or not it helps prevent future such occurrences (or even helps them occur)? I’m all for de-stigmatizing mental health problems; and hey, how ’bout let’s quit drugging-the-hell out of young boys! Especially with drugs that list as possible side effects “violence, murder, and suicide”?!
“Visualize peace”? Bet that feels good, all warm-and-fuzzy. Is there any chance that will be even SLIGHTLY effective in any way!? When some criminal invades your home or waves a gun or knife in your face… will “visualizing peace” *do anything* at all to protect you? (It’s a lovely thought. Lovely thoughts have no effect in reality.)
You want sanity? Sanity is taking a clear-eyed view of REALITY and then taking effective steps towards making that reality less dangerous. If you want to stop school shootings, how about stop making (and then advertising) schools as the perfect victim zone? Why do none of these boys ever go try to shoot-up a cop bar? Cause they KNOW the folks there will be armed. But you gun control folks have provided the perfect place to come shoot children in a barrel: they KNOW there will be no one at a school or other “gun-free zone” to stop them.
How about a reasoned, rational thought about whether or not the things you’re asking for actually CREATE the problem? Your “gun-free zones” — yeah, that worked perfectly in Sandy Hook (and Aurora and Columbine and and and…) and your “‘gun-control states,” like, say Connecticut? If you CREATE the *perfect hunting grounds* for young males filled with drugs that can lead them to murder and suicide, then perhaps increasing the “action” you took that has done so much damage so far, may not your first-best choice?
I wish with all my heart that these incidents did not happen … from school shootings up to the debacle of 9/11/2001. But they do, and it is no good wringing our hands and calling them “unthinkable.”
We HAD BETTER acknowledge that they exist, that they are escalating in frequency and horror, and that this will continue until and unless there is a quantum shift in the thinking, the emotional quotient, and the core values of our culture – and of ‘civilization’ in general. In short, we had better GET REAL. Violence and the rationalization of ‘morally necessary’ and ‘justified’ war are so ingrained in our minds that we even speak of the trajectory of an illness like cancer, and its treatment, as a ‘courageous fight,’ or an ‘heroic battle’ against the disease. Check out the obituary column to see what I mean.
Read any newspaper – it is riddled with such words every day in every sort of context. Try the sports page: the images of slaughter and annihilation abound and feed the wishful frenzy for metaphorical – or actual – blood that may satisfy a crude idea of manliness, but it isn’t only a ‘guy thing.’ Check out the comic section – funnies? Most of them are squalid, cynical, nasty, and full of the gratuitous ugliness of put-downs, deceit, meanness, and greed: a fertile breeding-ground for bullying and both blue- and white-collar crime, because they have become such a commonplace we scarcely notice them, except perhaps to chuckle and turn the page.
I find it harder and harder to find a movie I would like to rent, in among all the tales of weird, twisted, macabre violence and pointlessly explicit, ultimately dehumanized sex. And hard-sell, slimy, least-common-denominator television? – Gimme a break! I’m not a queasy person, and I am not a prude, but enough, already!
And then there is our whole attitude about raping our already despoiled planet – and not expecting to reap the whirlwind! When did we lose the understanding that actions have consequences? How did we mislay the vitally-important truth that what we do matters, not only in our own time, but for generations to come? The bottom line (itself a financial construct) is not just about money, although we behave as though the solitary thing that matters is HAVING, SPENDING on objects to enhance our status, and PREVENTING OTHERS from getting what is ‘ours.’
The bottom line is, we are interdependent, not only among ourselves, but among all other life forms and inanimate structures, as well. When the arctic ice is gone, polar bears are gone, and another species goes extinct. When drilling in the Chukchi Sea results in an oil spill, the beluga whales are done for, along with their prey and their predators – and the entire lifeway of a proud and ancient race of hunting peoples is eradicated. And profoundly-intelligent creatures such as elephants, dolphins, and the great apes are increasingly deprived of their essential habitat for short-sighted human encroachments. How are they to survive?
Is the phenomenon of school shootings a tragedy? On a small scale, yes: terrible, senseless, and, in any rational sense, unmotivated; devastating to families, classmates, and community who survive. But the far greater tragedy is what we are actively doing, or passively allowing to happen – not just what the U.S. is doing, but what ‘civilization’ is doing at a terrifying rate, all over the world, a world where civilian casualties of random bombings are dismissed as ‘collateral damage,’ the horrors endured by prisoners in Guantanemo and Abu Ghraib and the Black Sites as somehow ‘deserved,’ nuclear plant meltdowns as sad but ‘inevitable,’ and governmental corruption at all levels, just a ‘fact of life.’
The Native American word, Koyanisquatsi, means “The world out of balance.” That is the scope of our terrible unconsciousness, and there is nobody – neither a Big Daddy In the Sky, nor any commonly-recognized human advisor (unless, by chance, the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hahn or His Holiness the Dalai Lama should come to be generally accepted) – who is going to bail us out of our sinking boat. Nobody except us.
Gun control is all very well, perhaps, but WHERE IS THE WILL to mend our world on a much more fundamental level? We have to intervene in our educational system so that each individual child can learn not only A,B,C’s and 1,2,3’s, but discover her or his own unique, individual abilities and dignity and rightful place in the world. A bully (or a mass murderer) is only someone who has already been trodden upon until impotent rage explodes and takes down others in a futile attempt to feel like somebody important. Is this, itself, another kind of collateral damage resulting from a world population that is rampaging out of control?
The devaluing of creativity and expressive arts, of play that emphasizes cooperation and invention, and of communicative and interactive skills that foster not only conflict resolution, but kindness and lasting relational bonds, in favor of rote learning and standardized tests, MUST CHANGE before humanity becomes humane – or even fully human! Therein lies the value of Mindfulness Training, which is a practical method of learning to relate to oneself, to others, and to one’s surroundings, and it must begin at the earliest possible moment. If not instilled at home, then in nursery school, kindergarten, and on up the grades and right through high school. It is needed at every level, because children and their needs change constantly as they grow, and must be addressed at every level.
This is a very different matter than teaching one or another religion in the schools! It is the most basic form of authentic socialization – and individuation. Too many of the organized religions teach – and believe – that theirs is THE ONLY ONE that inculcates moral values. Nonsense! A thoughtful agnostic or atheist (which are not the same!) or an animist or pagan can be as ethically evolved and compassionate as anyone who has trained for their bar mitzvah or received a baptismal certificate, and can treat their fellow-man (or -woman) with as much respect and candor.
If we are to survive as a species, we must take this process to heart, and teach it to our young – on a secular, and therefore universally-accessible, basis – putting these values before our own doctrinal biases, our greed for power, or the whims and fads of the moment. It is the foundation of a truly human society, and, I believe, the surest path out of the thicket of thorns that we currently find ourselves in.
In China a similar problem only with a knife. We should outlaw knives as well. Or psycotrophic drugs which seems to be easily prescribed with no control. But, of course outlaw marijuana so that pharmaceuticals may prevail.
….and innocent people were killed senselessly. The Arts can and do and will help with the emotions and feelings of all people. I teach Art and I see the push of tests beyond comprehension. I see and experience day after day of not being balanced with “all subjects”. The Arts have saved cultures around the world by allowing others to experience their people. I am still in shock for the school in Conn. We have indeed created the children of this generation’s mind to be “askew”. I could write tons on this. Please help the families cope, the city cope and country cope and bring us back to civility, peace and of gentility. Think peace, act it. Stop with the ego building through games and misplaced violence in our culture. Nature wins in the end and we are part of nature.
Art saves lives. It always has, and will continue. I so believe this that I returned to school to get my Master’s Degree in Psychology with an emphasis in neuroscience based art therapy. As an educator, you offer your children so much richness in understanding emotions, expressions, human interactions… not just in the conversations you have, but also so much in the non-verbal that may never have words attached to it. CHILDREN NEED TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES, and in doing so they find their voices, their values, and their talents that will help them reach out for what they need life-long. Thank you for allowing your children to have open, sacred space within themselves through the use of art materials. And thank your school district for making us all safer by providing them this richness.
Much said here IS the start of a good discussion. Let’s all commit to keeping it going… here, and elsewhere; nationally, and in our local communities. We are all part of the problem, and we are all part of the solution. Egos aside, let us begin, at last, to address the complexities. Blessings to all.
Wow, thank you Ruth for getting this going. I have so many aggreements with
what others wrote. Tomorrow I have to face my elementary kids … class by class in my Art Rm.
We are studying Expressionism and doing “critiquing” about famous artists and critiquing , then, their
Art work they are doing. We already talked about Piccasso’s Guernica and how the city was bombed
I grew up in CT and still have family there. I am so grateful none of my family was involved. My heart goes out to those families who lost their precious children and family members. This is close to home. We also experienced a shooting at a shopping mall nearby. Luckily the gunman shot at the ground and sky and no one was injured. Close to home for me on both coasts. May those with such pain in their hearts find the necessary help and love. Karen
Wouldn’t it be nice if this event could be seen as the point where the conversation about gun control started. Sadly, I feel the gridlock that this country is in will keep us from starting and the help we need for our children will not come. This trauma has effected us all . I expect this week will be a hard one for many families . Over 1000 people killed in gun violence this year and now this. Glad you put your posting up Ruth and glad for what you do.
Connecticut has ALL the gun control laws you could ever wish for. That did *absolutely nothing* to stop this killer.
Are you wanting EFFECTIVE solutions, or just more feel-good flailing about? Would you (any of you) be willing to get educated about guns and gun ownership before asking for a “conversation about gun control”? (Will you recognize that the states and cities with the strictest gun control have the highest rate of gun crimes?) Are you willing to think clearly (not emotionally) and get educated so you can try to find possibly effective solutions? (“More gun control” is not it!)
Are you even aware that the U.S Supreme Court has ruled that states may NOT require criminals to register their guns (re: self-incrimination) only the law-abiding? Does that sound like “effective” gun control to you? “Do anything” is not effective. Especially “do anything” without LEARNING anything about the facts.
Guns (legally owned guns) are used more than 600,000 times a year to protect AGAINST crime. (And that number is according to the Brady Handgun Control people; somehow I doubt they’re exaggerating on the high side.) The NRA and GOA — and academics who’ve studied this honestly — suggest the rate is double or triple that number! How do you suggest a person in a wheelchair protect him/herself against a crime? How about an elderly person living alone? Someone who has to walk home from a late-night shift? (It’s true – and it’s true in every massing shooting — when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!)
Are you aware that in England — where gun control laws are insanely tight — “house robberies” are most often “hot” — the family is HOME when the *gun-carrying* criminals break in? Here in the States, we call those “home invasions,” and they’re not nearly so common because the criminals don’t know if homeowners are armed. Gun control effective against gun crime? Actually no.
“**** One guy tries to use a shoe bomb = Everyone at the airport takes their shoes off.
**** 31 school shootings since Columbine = no changes.”
Thank you to all the posts above. In some I found the ability to feel some of the pain that fear and the need to continue moving forward have blocked. The poem above saying “I see you…you matter”. The person expressing their goal to be a vessel to hold the pain and give compassion. Your many solutions and taking personal responsibility humble me. I’m angry and scared and confused, and I feel the desire to just stop, b/c their world stopped. But why? I’m not sure, except that I could picture myself being the last parent there, waiting for my child and knowing he wouldn’t be coming.
God help us
I agree with almost all the comments that have been made. I find it an interesting aspect of the profile of this young man, which if we were to look at many of the other tragic shootings these young males come from affluence not poverty. I think the next generation is disconnected from life because we have rewarded their embrace of electronics, handed them cell phones at 6-years of age, laptops to play games and watch movies. With the electromagnetic waves pervailing, poor nutriiton, materila rewards, drugs like Ritalin handed out to every boy before he is 10, it is no wonder we have created monsters not loving, warm young people.We need to all wake up and embrace these children with love and nutrition and as Judy mentioned bring back art, creativity and PLAY ( not play in front of a video game!) America has to learn the hard way it seems.I hope that we will learn from this and change for the better for our children.
There is nothing left to say. We are looking in a mirror – where have we all been guilty of lashing out in our heart at “the other”. I am sorry for any energy I have contributed on the planet that has been negative. I only hope that I have created more to the love that we also see reflected each day by all those that consciously aim to make a difference. May peace overwhelm the pain of all those affected by this tragedy.
My heart goes out to the families of those innocent and unsuspecting victims. As a member of the human race it is difficult to conceive the thinking of the perpetrator to target helpess, unprotected human beings in this way. We have much to do to overcome the circumstances that triggered such a tragedy. It happens too often and the scars run deep. It is a much bigger problem that obviously we, as humans, are missing. In the meantime, we can send our love to their loved ones. surround them with love, to help ease their pain.
Schools everywhere must preach and practice the art of human interaction beginning in elementary school including K and pre-K. With the ever advancing age of technologically instant communication devoid of the human spirit let alone face to face interaction we are becoming a faceless society where the cirtical need for human interaction is being lost. Conflict resolution is left, in many cases, to parents who become helpless and overwhelmed in the enablement of their children to do it their way because of peer pressure exacerbated by the de-humanizing social
media which they have succumbed to. Conflict resolution must be taught early on in the schools.
Teachers, no less parents, need to be trained in becoming aware of early signs of disinterest , sociopathy, bullying and mental illness including the autism spectrum. This awareness must be supported and acted upon from the school boards and superintendents and on down through the hierarchy. This is hard work but let’s start now. Tightening gun control legislation will be a slow and arduous process with the state of politics and NRA (G-d help us all).
Big help, big help. And suapiletrve news of course.
Saturday
December 15, 2012
We are brought to our knees in agony of violent tragedies.
I often deliberately disengage from the onslaught of media news. I don’t even have an internet homepage that blasts me with its direction of attention, so then I might cultivate a deeper awareness from which maybe a better action can arise to be of benefit.
It was not until early evening, when I met with friends, that I learned of one of the many tragedies occurring simultaneously on this earth. It was from their discussion about meeting with Hollywood producers of popular films that bring in billions of dollars based on violence and use of guns, that there was reference to the news of the day, which I was not privy to, and afraid to know. They, aware of my own history of loss relative to guns, gently offered the news of the school shooting, children dead…and my stomach turned, and my anger, tears and frustration traveled along my spine. We are not separate from this. We are responsible to this. It is not the guns, not the single mind gone mad, but a chronic isolation and lack of cultivation of what is good. More, it is the direct and continuous nurturing of a seeming separation, competition, and fear, leaving us alone and at odds with each other until there is a tragedy. And then the gun speaks what was never heard, seen, or recognized. What are we hearing in this?
In this same week I had attempted to offer some information via a webinar on the latest contemplative studies and the outcomes of compassionate practice—but more, what we can do, in our moments awareness to direct an attention that might wake up this natural capacity in us. I pointed toward the obvious ability of our human hearts when tragedy occurs—we shine! But, this is not enough. It is the neighbor who is too loud, or the car which just cut us off, or the strangers we barely acknowledge unless they are relevant to our societal or personal need—it is the ideas that are not like our own, the faces that are not like our own, the skin that is not like our own, the language that is not like our own—-it is our biological reflexive survivalistic immediate urges to protect against, that needs our moment to moment engagement, to help redirect a heart to a heart. It is too easy to show up as a hero in the time of obvious emergency. But it takes consciousness to sense this rumbling agony always pulsing just beneath our own skin from the lack of authentic connected inclusive acknowledgement and re-membering of who we a really are.
I remember being at the Science of Compassion Conference in Telluride this past July when the Aurora movie theater mass shootings occurred and I spoke to point us toward what true compassion requires. That compassion can be dangerous to who we think we are, to our desire for inclusion, and fears of exile. I wanted to point us away from the media’s attack regarding the “perpetrator” and toward our understanding, we are not far from being one—and are, often in our very thoughts about each other that judge, attack and reject. I wanted us to look into the conditions surrounding a person, within/without/between, that leads to behaviors to express a confused mind. To have interest in our own human fragility, not good or evil, not victim and perpetrator, but all within each of us if not for the quality of an environment which then determines the trajectory of a heart. But this is dangerous, as was true at 911, to consider where we might have gone wrong as a nation to elicit such hatred, as was true for Thich Nhat Hanh in not taking sides between north and south Vietnam, but laying himself down as a bridge—leaving him exiled from his own home—compassion can be dangerous—to who we think we are.
And now, I feel at a loss, and all these words insufficient to mend. Knowing we each now are vicariously traumatized and left helpless—wondering what action can be taken now—then turning to the anger at guns, at policy, at schools, at the “perpetrator”—wanting to blame and to fix.
I am so sorry. That is all I hear deep in my heart. And if I could hold, just wrap my arms around each agonized heart and taste each and every tear until it is safe enough to emerge, ready to know how changed we all are, never to be the same, and to figure out then how to live again, even more fully—I would hold and hold and hold and hold until the trembling stops.
I feel the mothers, the fathers, who wake into their nightmare—I am so sorry.
I have yet to watch the news. I fear its desensitization. Tragedy becomes an odd entertainment, leaving us too far from the reality veiled by all the details of a linear sequence of events. I will remain here, in this single heart, that knows other hearts, one beat at a time, until I know what my simple next action needs to be to bridge great concepts of compassion into a true embodied living.
I send my thoughts and blessings to the whole Sandy Hook community. I will continue to pray for peace and love and nonviolence, and to work for it in my personal and professional lives.
I pray for the souls of the teachers and children lost in this tragedy, and the healing of those left behind in grief.
I pray for the healing and return to a sense of safety for the community of Newtown, where my family once lived.
I pray for the awakening of a higher consciousness in the minds of the citizens and leaders of the United States…where outdated laws are changed to fit current societal conditions, where the rights of the citizens to live safely in their homes and communities is balanced against the right to bear arms, and the rights of the mentally ill.
I pray that we, as a people, not engage in inflaming political agendas and reactive finger-pointing to place blame, but instead, look to change our culture of violence and greed to one of compassion, cooperation and unity.
I pray that each of us has the courage to look in the mirror and see the shadow of an Adam or Nancy Lanza living within, and then take full responsibility for cleaning out our own “house” in order to make the world a better and safer place to live.
This event is extremely tragic and saddens me deeply…
I know mindfulness and meditation are the key, the key to prevent future tragedies…
Mindfulness and meditation practice opens our hearts, gives us clarity, allows us to witness our own pain…and in that pain, awareness of choice arises:
simply: the choice to be “good” or the choice to be “bad”…
Meditation practice, mindfulness practice fills our well and when we need it most, it arises ..
and it is from here that we are able to channel our empathy, compassion, love, forgiveness towards ourselves and others.
Mindfulness and meditation allows our spirits to shine in our darkest moments, they are the key to personal healing and preventing future tragedies.
What a tragedy!!! We must accept reality the way it is. It happened. Let it be and let it go. Let’s pray for peace in our world. We, as a nation, need to turn negative energy into positive. It is crucial to let our feelings out… It is a new moment, it is a new hour, it is a new day… Those baby souls are in haven, a much better place.
A had read several articles on some drugs that doctors prescribe with after effects of committing suicide or other horrific acts of violence. Doctors do not go to jail, then they keep prescribe them to people, we must stop that! How???????
Let’s not let the gun control people take advantage of our feeling of depression, anxiety, and disbelief… Taking guns out of the US Citizens would be an enormous tragedy. A totalitarian government works if its citizens are not armed.
I am hoping that this tragedy can at least serve a purpose and wake people up to take action to change the core problem. Some will cry out for gun control out of their pain and frustration but studies show that the lowest incidence of violence occurs where law abiding citizens have guns. Taking them away doesn’t correct the real problem. Caring more does. So many people are so wrapped up in their own lives and cell phones and texting and the stress of living these days that they don’t take time to notice those around them. Taking a little time to notice the person who seems alone and giving them special attention, or taking time to fight for healthy foods instead of GMOs and against the drug companies that promote unnecessary drugs for their own benefit-the substances that are throwing our bodies and minds out of balance, would do far more to change the problem. When people feel the absence of love, they can become dangerous to themselves and others. These tragedies that are becoming commonplace, have caused me to make a commitment to notice those who could use a kind word or gesture and to do my best to help them feel loved. Even a warm smile and honest “How are you doing today?” can be the thing that makes a difference. I’ve been on the receiving end of that during low times in the past when I wasn’t thinking straight because of my own pain. I will never forget the power of those gestures.
The issue is far more than simply changing the gun laws . Statistically gun violence is down and continues to drop across the entire country.
The culture of violence that is supported in America is seen in many areas of daily life. The ultra violent and realistic video games which have proliferated and are widely played across all ages including adolescents. Many of the adolescents and young adults who have been involved in the mass killings were found to have been players of these games, where they can practice killing as apparently the latest 20 year old was known to do.
The warfare directed against many other countries that turn the ‘other’ into nameless things so they are easier to kill. The military uses stimulated video games much like the games widely available for purchase.
Medications for various mental illnesses, while successful for some, can contribute to psychotic breaks with horrendous results. We are the most highly medicated society in the world. There is a pill for everything and people are not feeling better.
I feel deep sorrow for the children who were involved, their teachers and all the families who must now struggle with difficult emotions for a long time. My heart also goes out to the brother whose name was misidentified and has lost his mother, estranged brother in a most horrific way.
I am so sorry for the loss of these wonderful lives
Breathe – Pray – Breathe – Pray
Here in the West of Ireland we are deeply saddened by what has happened in Connectitut. Our thoughts are with all those families who have been devastated by this terrible atrocity.
Left brain right brain its a no brainer Change Your Gun Laws Now
Thare must be radical gun control , the gun lobby has to be overruled . No other civilized country in the world has as many guns and subsequent deaths than America .Dysfunctional families of mentally disturbed have to be made responsible , when guns are in the hands of the mentally ill. . The gun ownership in America is out of control , insane , irrational . We can,t waite any more time for more catastrophies to happen . Sincerely , Margo S. Armstrong
It’s not about guns (no matter how much people wish it could be!). Consider: did Prohibition stop all drinking? (Could it possibly?!) How’s the War on Drugs going? Any successes to report? We gun-owners forget to mention (over and over) that we are not just AS distressed by these incidents, but; as I put it at that link: “suffering our own double-outrage at the shooting: that it happened and that we were prevented by “gun control laws” from trying to stop or mitigate it.”
Gun *ownership* is not out of control (although drug and gang crime certainly are). (Should the POLICE stop owning guns? Do you object to the police carrying guns? If not, then you’re not objecting to the GUN but to the (type of) person carrying it. How will trying to control guns change the *type* of person (for the better –every single time ‘gun confiscation’ has ever been used it has resulted in criminals continuing/increasing their gun use, but left the law-abiding defenseless. What is the point of that?!
Gun ownership is not insane: guns are used to *PROTECT* people from violence and death more than 600,000 times a year — and that’s according to the Brady Handgun Control people; the NRA and GOA — and various academics who’ve studied it honestly — suggest it’s as much or more than double that number!
Gun ownership is not even slightly irrational! How do you suggest a person in a wheelchair protect him or herself from an attacker? How about a older woman living alone? How about someone who has to walk home from night work? It is absolutely true that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. (You even SAW that at Sandy Hook. If you’d look honestly not emotionally, you’d see that is true of EVERY SINGLE mass shooting ever — and the ones that are stopped short of mass murders are almost always stopped by someone (law-abiding, protecting) WITH a gun!
Emotional flailing will not have any positive effect. “radical gun control” will not have any positive effect. It will, in fact, have a seriously detrimental one: check out England; their ‘house robberies,’ since their ever-so-strict gun control, are now majority “hot” — the folks are HOME when the *gun-carrying* criminals break in. (We call that a home invasion here in the States — and it’s WAY less common here, because criminals are rightly concerned about homeowners with guns.
My heart goes out to all of those touched by the shooting at Sandy Hook school and the community. I’ll hold you in loving-kindness meditation. Let light and love return to earth. I was moved to write this ‘poem’ or mantra of sorts, after meditating one day in October. It seems fitting to share here-
To all those who are needing to be seen- I see you.
You matter to me.
I recognize you are there.
You are important to the world.
I love you
I see you
For all those calling out to know if they matter- you matter.
You matter to me.
I recognize you.
I recognize your worth.
You are important to the world.
I love you
May all of us take personal responsibility, have compassion and serve others to create an enlightened planetary civilization.
There’s madness afoot. Nothing happens in isolation.
I think this tragic event is symptomatic of a culture predicated on violence and the means by which violence is inflicted, which is an outcropping , an expression of the malaise and confusion which afflicts our culture-at-large.
The perpetrator and his innocent victims are all victims, expressing the deep pain and rage folks young and old are experiencing as our materialistic culture of indifference, greed, and self interest disintegrates.
While we mourn the loss of innocents at home, our government, entranced by violence, wages endless war abroad on endless innocent victims, hundreds of thousands of them. Using Orwellian language, we call that collateral damage. We tend to accept the latter and only pay attention when our penchant for violence-driven solutions, born of deep despair, outrage and ignorance, is mirrored in a tragic, compelling event such as the shooting at Sandy Hook school.
I think Stalin had it right when he said, and I paraphrase, kill a thousand people and it’s a statistic, kill one and it’s a tragedy.
I agree…..when schools took away the arts, sports, home economics (which taught the ‘balance’ of not only the checkbook, but home management (thoughtfulness for the good of all), and impressed only Left-brain scholastic subjects, it became solely focused on logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy, while for the most part, ignoring Right-brained subjects, such as aesthetics, feeling, and creativity. This creates such a gross imbalance in our children’s impressionable years. In a two parent family, where both are working, and of course the working single parent, it becomes a matter of just ‘keeping their heads above water’ for many, and the children may not be getting the balance from the home either. In California, the homework load, even as young as Kindergarten, averages 1 – 2 hours a night focused on even more academics, leaving little time to enhance the right brain function, thereby nurturing ‘balance’ in our youth. I realize this isn’t the case in some areas of the country, but it is in many states and I hear of more and more of it taking place. We need to bring the balance of our ‘humaness’ (right AND left brain) back into the educational system for our children. Perhaps this will nurture more ‘thoughtfulness’ of the whole.
Wonder if a national center where anyone could go to, removing themselves from society to a safe environment where they could get help would be helpful? Crisis teams go in afterwards but what about a center for the hopeless? A free ticket to get there. No punishment. Open arms to help another. sounds crazy?
This kind of rage doesn’t come from a person who has had loving connections with others. It comes from someone who has been shamed repeatedly and who lives in their own internal hell of disconnection.
Each time I hear about this kind of violence, the pain I feel is not only for the victims of this person’s desperate act but I also feel pain for the perpetrator as well. I feel the pain of our society where disconnection and shame is the norm. I see it every day. We believe we can change others and ourselves for the better with shame. There is nothing good that can come from shame in the long term. It may yield short-term results, but the long term costs are devastating. When you make others feel small, unimportant, and powerless, the life force of those individuals will find a way to feel powerful. And this kind of tragedy is the result.
agree, agree
The unthinkable has occurred yet again. The long range approach for our educational system is of course
essential. But right now, every one of us who feel, who care, who grieve, can use this opportunity to
channel our thoughts and activate our prayers by giving of our time, energy, and dollars to insist on gun
control. We have to approach non-violence on all levels for the sake of all who have been harmed and
caused harm and those who will be next if we stop at talk.
Dear Ruth,
Thank you very much for your most caring email expression, and I totally agree with all that you have expressed.
We have already sent our Prayers and Blessings out to all those individuals and families in the
Sandy Hook Elementary area, and we will continue to do so.
I/We feel that Mindfulness can and would add a major positive component to all the major challenges that school children face today.
Also, from personal experience and practice we know that putting God first and foremost in our lives is of major major importance in This Spiritual Shift, and accelerated world change.
Again, Thank You for all that you offer ,Ruth.
Sincerely,
Norman Gentry
Any kind of meditation will help and the next best thing is to stop
worshiping guns and all forms of violence.
Various things have been predicted for this time when it appears that the darkness is so heavy.
But the light will overcome. Those of us who consider ourselves “light” workers and energy workers, who see the connection between not only the mind and the body, but the soul and spirit as well must take another step, if not a LEAP, forward.
Suzann, Author of Exploring Intimacy: Cultivating Healthy Relationships through Insight and Intuition.
I want mindfulness to be part of the grade school curriculum. Our youth are lost and confused and lonely….many of them anyway. Believing in yourself…believing in the individual power of the human spirit and encouraging positive self- concept in the early years might decrease the possibility of these horrific tragedies that seem to be plaguing our country and our world as we know it.
My heart bleeds for all involved.
I totally agree with Suzy’s comment. The curricula that is currently being promoted in public schools emphasizes left brain development, often to the detriment of right brain development. The man who committed this horrific act was known to be Asperger’s, an example of a person with an underfunctioning right hemisphere and overfunctioning left hemisphere. Mindfulness would have helped to balance the two hemispheres, along with music and art training. It definitely should be part of our curricula, along with sensitivity training. I’m sure the shooter had sustained a horrific amount of bullying over the years due to his condition. And, I wonder what kind of medications he was on? Lots of unanswered questions.
I agree with Suzy and Gary. Children are very adept at introspection and identification of their thoughts, emotions and physical sensations – if we provide them with the skills and encouragement to do so. Our society and culture is currently so bound up in fear and aggression that those individuals who do not have the capacity to manage their perceptions and reactions in a healthy way are dissociated and unaware of the dangerous currents driving their behaviors. Our children need development of both hemispheres of their brains, mindfulness training, and opportunities to learn how to mindfully manage fight, flight and freeze reactions to the events that occur in their lives. The sadness I feel about this catastrophic incident in Connecticut is indescribable – and I can only imagine the cold grip it has on those directly affected by it.