Hell on Earth

It is a piece of hell when innocents are gunned down, without a doubt. I’ve read many attempts at solutions and blame in the days since. Some maintain that it’s the access to automatic weapons, so we need to limit that access. Or, it’s the lack of access to mental health advocacy, so we need to increase that access. It’s the violence in media, so we need to decrease that violence. A friend in Africa laments that some lethal crimes are “fad-” oriented, which is horrifying, but possibly true as well. No real solutions there.

That’s the thing that speaks volumes about the humanity of Americans. The quest for solutions to vile problems. God, I love that people care enough to at least try to confront the issues.

I have no solutions, but do see a position that will solve nothing. Drawing a hard line to only one solution based on personality or political ideology. Believing that any hard problem to solve is a straight line from A (the problem) to B,  (the solution) is a child’s fantasy.   Society’s and personal problems are multi-varied, aren’t they? The fact is that no one or no policy has the ability to control outcomes. Some have been saved by a gun some have been hurt by one. Some have been helped by mental health advocacy, some have been hurt. Some crimes can be prevented by law and order and some can’t.

The joke lately is that “thoughts and prayers,” aren’t enough when change needs to be made. A true statement hailing back to the Good Samaritan, who risked life and limb to save an undesirable, so to speak. Yet, on complicated societal issues, those of faith pray in good conscious when that’s all they know to do. Better than abject denial, I’d say.

For those in the know, who have solutions to offer, you must engage with those who have alternate solutions. Jordan Peterson likes to say that each person has the ability to “tilt the world a little closer to heaven or a little closer to hell.” Similar to the AA line, “…help me to control the things I can and accept the things I cannot.”

To clarify, your words and your actions have power! Denigrating another’s words have power as well. The power to stop engagement in its tracks. Theoretically, the entire two-party political system is a bid to hear all voices and come to conclusions that benefit the greater majority. God, I know it’s a hot mess right now and it is also a multi-varied situation.

One of the harsher realities of life is the fact that the only thing you have control of is you. (I don’t know about you, but I have trouble with myself all the time.). But it is a goal, to bring a little heaven, even while lamenting all the hell. Grace and eventual peace, to those whose families have been forever scarred by hell on earth.