So, I have a list--a short list--of people that I truly despise. One time, I even contemplated killing one of them. It wouldn't have been a crime of passion. It wouldn't have been self-defense. It wouldn't have been an act of madness. It wouldn't have been an act of war. It just would have been an act of retribution--payback for years of fear, oppression and pain. But as much as I wanted to do it, and as much as I believed it was possible that I could, I couldn't.
Most of us will never know what it's like to take the life of another human. Regardless of belief systems, it seems to be an act that most of us innately know to be heinous and unforgiveable. Even though many enlist in the different branches of the armed forces, most people doing so hope they will never be forced to take another life.
Those of us who don't find ourselves in situations that force our hands, don't know what enters the mind of individuals who make the fateful decision to kill someone else. Until reading the now wildly popular "Hunger Games" series, I couldn't imagine a circumstance that would convicne children to actvely participate in the sport of killing each other. Most of the characters never would have considered committing such a heinous act, until reaching that arena and knowing that it was kill or be killed. Until under direct threat, Katniss seemed to be avoiding the inevitable--letting others do the killing.
"The Hunger Games" aren't real life. But luckily, in real life we don't frequently find ourselves in the position of having to defend ourselves or others. I would bet most of us don't know what we would do in these kinds of circumstances. We hope we'd be able to protect ourselves or those we love, but we hope we never have to find out.
In recent days, the idea of being "driven to kill" has taken the spotlight.
An Army Staff Seargent allegedly went door to door killing innocent Afghan men, women and children. Many people say that if he committed this horrible crime, it's only because he was "driven to it" after multiple deployments, traumatic brain injury and the influence of alcohol. We should feel sorry for him.
Hundreds of thousands of men and women have been deployed to active duty multiple times and suffered brain and other significant injuries. But only one was allegedly "driven to kill" nine children. What I have found deplorable is the number of people coming to his defense, justifying his actions because of how much he has suffered from being deployed so many times. It's difficult, if he indeed did commit this terrible act, to understand how a father of two young children could take the lives of other children. I'm having a great deal of difficulty finding it in my heart to understand or empathize with this kind of act. I find myself not caring about how many times he was deployed, or what he suffered. I'm sure the relatives of the victims don't find any peace in knowing their loved ones were cut down in their sleep because a man had willingly enlisted in the armed forces and found himself serving multiple tours. I find myself looking for accountability.
If there can be a positive for me in reflecting on this act, it's that I know there are countless other men and women serving us honorably--over and over--and doing everything to hold themselves together and not get sucked into this kind of abyss. Knowing this makes my support for our troops even stronger, because the majority are showing grace under extreme pressure and duress. We owe them a debt we will never be able to repay.
Killing in a war zone is what a war zone is all about. We expect people to kill each other on a war front, but we don't expect it on our city streets.
People everywhere are protesting, and calling for the arrest of a man who took the life of a seventeen-year-old African American boy in Florida. The man claims that his actions were self defense. He claims that the boy came after him and beat him up. He was forced to defend himself. I don't know what really happened. There's a good chance none of us will ever learn the whole truth behind the incident, because a bizarre law in Florida makes the act of deadly force legal if you claim such force was used in self-defense.
The thing that makes me wonder most about this incident is the recorded conversation between the shooter and a 911 dispatcher who was telling him not to pursue the boy--to let law enforcement address the situation. He ignored the dispatcher's directive. Why? I don't even care about the possibility that he used an obscene racial slur in the call. I just find it hard to understand why he continued to pursue the kid. I also consider how the average man might react to seeing someone seem to stalk them while on a cell phone, and I wonder, would that have driven Trayvon to confront him--in turn giving Zimmerman an even greater sense of just cause for taking his life? Could a shoving match over bitter words and misinterpreted actions led to this kid's death?
I'm not naive. I know that as much as I would prefer to live in a world where we could all resolve issues non-violently, I understand that won't always happen. But short of some aberrant twist of chromosomes, I will never understand what makes one human more likely to "snap," and with seemingly little to no cause take the life of another human.
Killing does not lead to anything good. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, even my emotions were high, and in the flurry, I believed a violent response was warranted. But in the years since, it has become less clear to me what the benefit of such a response truly has been. Trillions of dollars have been spent. Thousands of lives have been laid to waste. The ideology of the region we have occupied for the last ten years has barely inched from what it was at the time of the attacks. The destruction of sixteen innocent lives certainly hasn't further endeared us to the Afghan people, or anyone else in the region.
On our home front, the New Black Panthers are calling for loud protests and an "eye for an eye" in regards to the slaying of Trayvon Martin. They are practically inciting violence with their rhetoric.
I'm at a loss to understand how spilling the blood of others can help right any wrong. I'm at a loss to understand how we can look at anyone and say "he was driven to it."
Mahatma Ghandi said it better than anyone else ever will: "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind."
Mothers of the Disappeared--U2
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
March 11, 2012--The brain sets the heart free, as they are now free.
So, I think our brains have a way of creating moments that, out of context, seem cruel and heartless. But the thing I think we often forget in a moment of pain is that the brain doesn't live without the heart.
My grandpa died about seven years ago. Wild Turkey had been a very close friend to him, years of hard physical labor, and a marriage to a woman who could never love him as much as he loved her had taken a great toll on him.
He was a brash, offensive and horrible man. But he also was a loving, humorous and secretly tender man. He was the man who referred to the political party opposing his own views as "Nazis." But he also was the man who, near the end of his life, remembered that my grandma had once mentioned wanting a metal detector, and just a few days before Christmas (always last minute) would make the call to me to fetch one for her. Years of self-destructive overindulgence in food and alcohol, combined with the toll hard physical labor takes on your body, had left him pretty much home-bound. So, he relied on me a lot. Three hours away, I was one of the few people he could rely on, with the exception of the "friend" who continued to sneak him whiskey. I wish that "friend" had been far less reliable.
In the days that followed my grandpa's death, I couldn't help the feeling that he had deserved so much better. He deserved to be loved as much as he loved. He deserved not to feel as much physical and emotional pain as he suffered for so many of his final years. I worried that maybe, just maybe, he had deliberately increased his "secret" alcohol intake near the end, knowing that there would be no one to question whether his passing was completely "natural" or not.
In my heart, no matter what really happened, his death was anything but natural. There is nothing natural about losing someone you love, especially someone you love whom you know no one else loves in the same way you love them. I was embarrassed by him. He was so racist, so offensive and just generally unpleasant to so many. But, in the last years of his life, I listened to him. I got to know the person he was and why he did the things I found so abhorrent and annoying. And somehow, I came to love him for those things too.
When he died, my grandma wanted to cremate him. I was horrified. He and I had never spoken of his desires, and maybe he really didn't care, but when I considered what I knew of him, I protested. My grandpa had adored his parents, almost as much as his wife. They were good Catholics--something my grandpa certainly was not, and probably even disdained. But he loved them so much, I felt sure that he would want to be buried and given a proper send off. In a way, and without hurtful intent, I found myself planning that send off, and basically dragging my grandma along.
In retrospect, I think it's just as likely that he wouldn't have cared, but I did. I cared so much that I steeled myself to remember that he was not a good Catholic and that God, whatever that is, had little if any place in his life, and I spoke at his funeral instead of some preacher he had never met. I took the opportunity to illustrate the negatives about him, as well as the positives, and especially to communicate in very certain words the way in which I felt he had been misunderstood and under-appreciated by others. I explained that in the last years of his life, his body had become a prison--a constant source of frustration and pain he couldn't escape. Maybe it was wrong, but it felt good to stand up for him, since as brash and horrible as he was, he never stood up for himself.
I took his last years, and his passing as a personal affront. I wished I had done more for him. I ached for how much he had hurt. Feelings that are still hard to let go of and think about so many years later.
A few weeks after he died, I had a dream about him. I was in an unfamiliar setting--some kind of apartment. It was streamed with crazy sunlight and he came to my door. He wouldn't come in, and he wouldn't say anything to me, but simply stood at the door with an enormous smile on his face, waving at me. And then, he was gone.
After that, the pain started to slowly slip away. I don't really remember when it stopped. I just know that some time passed and I didn't feel the need to cry everyday and I stopped boiling over with the anger I had for everyone who had mistreated and abandoned him.
This morning, I had a dream about our Blue. Throughout his life, Blue was a nervous Nellie--always quick to upset, a barker, a whiner and a dog who demanded attention. He seemed to be able to tell time, and in the last few years, all of those life-long traits had intensified. Those things had been almost endearing when he was young, but as he seemed to be more restless, more difficult to pacify and more relentless in his neediness--for what I could almost never tell--those traits were a drain. In losing him, we have gained the guilt of how easy just "being" has become.
In the time after losing someone, our brain is overtaken by our heart. It begins to paint pictures of the person--or dog--we have lost and it turns them into a heroic and shining version of who they were, that they never could have lived up to in real life.
For days, I haven't been able to see "old Blue," just the younger version that was always truckin' around the house, panting and alerting me to the fact he wanted a treat.
In my dream about him this morning, I found myself in a place that I had never been before, but there were a million familiar things all around. I found myself talking about how much I missed Blue and how terrible it was to lose him with a mother I will never care about in the way I once did, and a man who I will never be able to relate to as I once did. My sister was an infant, crawling around on the wretchedly thick, green plush carpet from the first house my parents owned. Long lost toys and objects from my past were gathered in corners, including my Goofy slipper with the blow-out and my "Magical Musical Thing." I lie down on that soft, ugly carpet, and young Blue jumped into my arms and licked my face. I laughed and played with him until I woke up and all of it was gone. And he is gone.
In the same way my brain found a way to break through to my heart and let me know that my grandpa was going to be all right, my brain found a way to tell my heart that young Blue was a place I would never see again, and that he had really been gone for quite a while. It was okay to stop painting the picture--the one I couldn't stop seeing. It was okay to see him how he really was.
Day to day life hadn't let me start grieving for Blue when we really started to lose him. It's only now that I can't continue to try and make him the Blue I had been missing, that I grasp he was already gone.
My Body is a Cage--The Arcade Fire
My grandpa died about seven years ago. Wild Turkey had been a very close friend to him, years of hard physical labor, and a marriage to a woman who could never love him as much as he loved her had taken a great toll on him.
He was a brash, offensive and horrible man. But he also was a loving, humorous and secretly tender man. He was the man who referred to the political party opposing his own views as "Nazis." But he also was the man who, near the end of his life, remembered that my grandma had once mentioned wanting a metal detector, and just a few days before Christmas (always last minute) would make the call to me to fetch one for her. Years of self-destructive overindulgence in food and alcohol, combined with the toll hard physical labor takes on your body, had left him pretty much home-bound. So, he relied on me a lot. Three hours away, I was one of the few people he could rely on, with the exception of the "friend" who continued to sneak him whiskey. I wish that "friend" had been far less reliable.
In the days that followed my grandpa's death, I couldn't help the feeling that he had deserved so much better. He deserved to be loved as much as he loved. He deserved not to feel as much physical and emotional pain as he suffered for so many of his final years. I worried that maybe, just maybe, he had deliberately increased his "secret" alcohol intake near the end, knowing that there would be no one to question whether his passing was completely "natural" or not.
In my heart, no matter what really happened, his death was anything but natural. There is nothing natural about losing someone you love, especially someone you love whom you know no one else loves in the same way you love them. I was embarrassed by him. He was so racist, so offensive and just generally unpleasant to so many. But, in the last years of his life, I listened to him. I got to know the person he was and why he did the things I found so abhorrent and annoying. And somehow, I came to love him for those things too.
When he died, my grandma wanted to cremate him. I was horrified. He and I had never spoken of his desires, and maybe he really didn't care, but when I considered what I knew of him, I protested. My grandpa had adored his parents, almost as much as his wife. They were good Catholics--something my grandpa certainly was not, and probably even disdained. But he loved them so much, I felt sure that he would want to be buried and given a proper send off. In a way, and without hurtful intent, I found myself planning that send off, and basically dragging my grandma along.
In retrospect, I think it's just as likely that he wouldn't have cared, but I did. I cared so much that I steeled myself to remember that he was not a good Catholic and that God, whatever that is, had little if any place in his life, and I spoke at his funeral instead of some preacher he had never met. I took the opportunity to illustrate the negatives about him, as well as the positives, and especially to communicate in very certain words the way in which I felt he had been misunderstood and under-appreciated by others. I explained that in the last years of his life, his body had become a prison--a constant source of frustration and pain he couldn't escape. Maybe it was wrong, but it felt good to stand up for him, since as brash and horrible as he was, he never stood up for himself.
I took his last years, and his passing as a personal affront. I wished I had done more for him. I ached for how much he had hurt. Feelings that are still hard to let go of and think about so many years later.
A few weeks after he died, I had a dream about him. I was in an unfamiliar setting--some kind of apartment. It was streamed with crazy sunlight and he came to my door. He wouldn't come in, and he wouldn't say anything to me, but simply stood at the door with an enormous smile on his face, waving at me. And then, he was gone.
After that, the pain started to slowly slip away. I don't really remember when it stopped. I just know that some time passed and I didn't feel the need to cry everyday and I stopped boiling over with the anger I had for everyone who had mistreated and abandoned him.
This morning, I had a dream about our Blue. Throughout his life, Blue was a nervous Nellie--always quick to upset, a barker, a whiner and a dog who demanded attention. He seemed to be able to tell time, and in the last few years, all of those life-long traits had intensified. Those things had been almost endearing when he was young, but as he seemed to be more restless, more difficult to pacify and more relentless in his neediness--for what I could almost never tell--those traits were a drain. In losing him, we have gained the guilt of how easy just "being" has become.
In the time after losing someone, our brain is overtaken by our heart. It begins to paint pictures of the person--or dog--we have lost and it turns them into a heroic and shining version of who they were, that they never could have lived up to in real life.
For days, I haven't been able to see "old Blue," just the younger version that was always truckin' around the house, panting and alerting me to the fact he wanted a treat.
In my dream about him this morning, I found myself in a place that I had never been before, but there were a million familiar things all around. I found myself talking about how much I missed Blue and how terrible it was to lose him with a mother I will never care about in the way I once did, and a man who I will never be able to relate to as I once did. My sister was an infant, crawling around on the wretchedly thick, green plush carpet from the first house my parents owned. Long lost toys and objects from my past were gathered in corners, including my Goofy slipper with the blow-out and my "Magical Musical Thing." I lie down on that soft, ugly carpet, and young Blue jumped into my arms and licked my face. I laughed and played with him until I woke up and all of it was gone. And he is gone.
In the same way my brain found a way to break through to my heart and let me know that my grandpa was going to be all right, my brain found a way to tell my heart that young Blue was a place I would never see again, and that he had really been gone for quite a while. It was okay to stop painting the picture--the one I couldn't stop seeing. It was okay to see him how he really was.
Day to day life hadn't let me start grieving for Blue when we really started to lose him. It's only now that I can't continue to try and make him the Blue I had been missing, that I grasp he was already gone.
My Body is a Cage--The Arcade Fire
Thursday, March 1, 2012
March 1, 2012--Sometimes we "hunger" for more.
So, a lot of people around me have been reading "The Hunger Games," and are eagerly anticipating the movie, which will be released in about three weeks. I had my doubts. After all, the premise is horrifying. But, I finally succumbed in the last week, and I understand the hype. During a week that has been anything but pleasant, I have been able to find myself completely sucked into the epic story of Katniss, a young woman who finds herself in a struggle to survive a battle to the death with twenty-three others in a post-apocalyptic world.
On the surface, it is an adventuresome thrill ride that drags you to the edge of your seat and keeps you there. As I think about the week I happen to be living, it has taken on a different meaning for me.
In "The Hunger Games," Katniss lives in District 12, one of the poorest of the remaining districts of Panem. Panem is overseen by leaders living in the Capitol who govern with an iron fist and want to make certain that all of its citizens living outside of the Capitol know the danger of dissent. Each year, two children, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18, are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. In these games, the "Tributes," as they are called, are launched into an artificial world with its own potential threats and hidden bounties. They are intended to kill each other until there is only one of them remaining.
Katniss isn't really good at accepting her lot. In her poor mining district, food is scarce, and as the oldest daughter of a widowed mother, she has become the primary provider in her household. She escapes the confines of her district on a routine basis to hunt and gather any additional sustenance the nearby woods has to offer. It is through her hunting and gathering that she develops a strong, but undefined bond with Gale, a boy who is just a couple years older than she is.
Everything about the games is designed to further oppress the people of the poorer districts and the lower classes within each district. For the price of increasing their odds of being selected in the reaping, the impoverished and hungry children can acquire additional food to help sustain their families. As the primary providers in their families, Katniss and Gale have multiple chances in the reaping, but much to Katniss's horror, her sister Prim's name is drawn the first year of her eligibility. Even if you haven't seen the movie trailer, it's a given that Katniss will volunteer to take her sister's place.
She and her male counterpart, Peeta, are swept away in a wave of strategizing and image creation. In the process of preparing for the games, Peeta reveals two things: 1) he doesn't want his fear of dying to change the person he is as he fights for his own survival and 2) he has been in love with Katniss for years. Katniss, who has promised her family she will do her best to survive the games, has no use for holding onto trifling things like her own identity, and the last thing she knows what to do with are Peeta's feelings for her.
As the games unfold, Katniss struggles to keep her promise. Along the way, she becomes attached to a girl from another district and with this girl's death, she seems finally to begin to absorb the cruelty of the games. She begins to discover herself, and not only struggles to fight for her own survival, but for the survival of her own spirit, even though she isn't exactly sure she knows her own spirit. And it is this that is the essence of what I have connected with in this story.
I identify myself as an agnostic--someone who isn't sure there is a higher power. Some people think of agnostics as being "atheist light." But I often think of the scene in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," when Hugh Grant's character Charles is getting ready to marry Duckface and he tells his brother he is uncertain of what to do. "Here I am on my wedding day and I'm still thinking." It seems like I find myself feeling the same way about God and many other heavy life decisions. I'm always "still thinking."
In "The Hunger Games," Katniss finds herself confused about her feelings for Peeta and Gale. She finds herself playing along with a ruse that may just help her and Peeta survive. But at what expense? And if the ruse does work, how long will she have to keep it up? What other prices will she have to pay?
The outcome of the games is surprising to say the least. Without necessarily planning it, Katniss thumbs her nose at the Capitol and appears to be inciting dissent among the districts. Such an act puts herself and those she loves in danger.
When the world seems to be closing in on her, it appears she thinks she can have it both ways when she considers the prospect of gathering her loved ones and trying to run. She believes in something impossible, only to find that some of the people she loves aren't able to so easily delude themselves and pretend.
This last weekend, Jeph and I had to say goodbye to our fifteen-year-old dog--our Blue. It's the second such loss we've suffered in the last two years. Last spring, we nearly lost our eleven-year-old dog. As I contemplated the possibility that she would not survive her illness, for a moment, I believed no matter the benefit, I could never take on any other living thing to love, because of the deep pain I knew I was going to endure if we lost her. As I am enduring that pain, I find myself unable to close the door on eternity--something only a dedicated atheist can do. I find myself referring to where Blue and Scrubby are now, and their fellow dogs that I've known over the years that deserve better than my faithlessness.
Loss makes you "hunger" for something more. It makes you hunger for an alternative to what you can see and know with your eyes. It makes you hunger for a way out. It makes you hunger for a sustenance the faithless can never find.
I don't know if Katniss will ultimately survive. I haven't gotten through all three books yet. In spite of the pain I feel right now, I know that I will survive. I know that, in spite of my current feelings about it, that I will "love" again. As the last weekend was ending, I discovered a quote by Edgar Allan Poe that shocked me: "Never to suffer would never to have been blessed." Knowing a thing or two about the losses and suffering he endured in his short life, I have to raise a glass to my Eddy for being able to recognize what most of us find really difficult to see in the face of sorrow.
And since I haven't been launched into an arena with twenty-three other people who are trying to kill me, I have the time to consider who I am and what all of that means before I reach that final door.
Safe and Sound--Taylor Swift, featuring The Civil Wars
On the surface, it is an adventuresome thrill ride that drags you to the edge of your seat and keeps you there. As I think about the week I happen to be living, it has taken on a different meaning for me.
In "The Hunger Games," Katniss lives in District 12, one of the poorest of the remaining districts of Panem. Panem is overseen by leaders living in the Capitol who govern with an iron fist and want to make certain that all of its citizens living outside of the Capitol know the danger of dissent. Each year, two children, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18, are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. In these games, the "Tributes," as they are called, are launched into an artificial world with its own potential threats and hidden bounties. They are intended to kill each other until there is only one of them remaining.
Katniss isn't really good at accepting her lot. In her poor mining district, food is scarce, and as the oldest daughter of a widowed mother, she has become the primary provider in her household. She escapes the confines of her district on a routine basis to hunt and gather any additional sustenance the nearby woods has to offer. It is through her hunting and gathering that she develops a strong, but undefined bond with Gale, a boy who is just a couple years older than she is.
Everything about the games is designed to further oppress the people of the poorer districts and the lower classes within each district. For the price of increasing their odds of being selected in the reaping, the impoverished and hungry children can acquire additional food to help sustain their families. As the primary providers in their families, Katniss and Gale have multiple chances in the reaping, but much to Katniss's horror, her sister Prim's name is drawn the first year of her eligibility. Even if you haven't seen the movie trailer, it's a given that Katniss will volunteer to take her sister's place.
She and her male counterpart, Peeta, are swept away in a wave of strategizing and image creation. In the process of preparing for the games, Peeta reveals two things: 1) he doesn't want his fear of dying to change the person he is as he fights for his own survival and 2) he has been in love with Katniss for years. Katniss, who has promised her family she will do her best to survive the games, has no use for holding onto trifling things like her own identity, and the last thing she knows what to do with are Peeta's feelings for her.
As the games unfold, Katniss struggles to keep her promise. Along the way, she becomes attached to a girl from another district and with this girl's death, she seems finally to begin to absorb the cruelty of the games. She begins to discover herself, and not only struggles to fight for her own survival, but for the survival of her own spirit, even though she isn't exactly sure she knows her own spirit. And it is this that is the essence of what I have connected with in this story.
I identify myself as an agnostic--someone who isn't sure there is a higher power. Some people think of agnostics as being "atheist light." But I often think of the scene in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," when Hugh Grant's character Charles is getting ready to marry Duckface and he tells his brother he is uncertain of what to do. "Here I am on my wedding day and I'm still thinking." It seems like I find myself feeling the same way about God and many other heavy life decisions. I'm always "still thinking."
In "The Hunger Games," Katniss finds herself confused about her feelings for Peeta and Gale. She finds herself playing along with a ruse that may just help her and Peeta survive. But at what expense? And if the ruse does work, how long will she have to keep it up? What other prices will she have to pay?
The outcome of the games is surprising to say the least. Without necessarily planning it, Katniss thumbs her nose at the Capitol and appears to be inciting dissent among the districts. Such an act puts herself and those she loves in danger.
When the world seems to be closing in on her, it appears she thinks she can have it both ways when she considers the prospect of gathering her loved ones and trying to run. She believes in something impossible, only to find that some of the people she loves aren't able to so easily delude themselves and pretend.
This last weekend, Jeph and I had to say goodbye to our fifteen-year-old dog--our Blue. It's the second such loss we've suffered in the last two years. Last spring, we nearly lost our eleven-year-old dog. As I contemplated the possibility that she would not survive her illness, for a moment, I believed no matter the benefit, I could never take on any other living thing to love, because of the deep pain I knew I was going to endure if we lost her. As I am enduring that pain, I find myself unable to close the door on eternity--something only a dedicated atheist can do. I find myself referring to where Blue and Scrubby are now, and their fellow dogs that I've known over the years that deserve better than my faithlessness.
Loss makes you "hunger" for something more. It makes you hunger for an alternative to what you can see and know with your eyes. It makes you hunger for a way out. It makes you hunger for a sustenance the faithless can never find.
I don't know if Katniss will ultimately survive. I haven't gotten through all three books yet. In spite of the pain I feel right now, I know that I will survive. I know that, in spite of my current feelings about it, that I will "love" again. As the last weekend was ending, I discovered a quote by Edgar Allan Poe that shocked me: "Never to suffer would never to have been blessed." Knowing a thing or two about the losses and suffering he endured in his short life, I have to raise a glass to my Eddy for being able to recognize what most of us find really difficult to see in the face of sorrow.
And since I haven't been launched into an arena with twenty-three other people who are trying to kill me, I have the time to consider who I am and what all of that means before I reach that final door.
Safe and Sound--Taylor Swift, featuring The Civil Wars
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