I spent the day today playing video games. Like, hours of them. I've been threatening to do this for months and today I finally did it. I played Madden 2015 for probably close to 6 hours, pausing only to eat, get a beer, or use the bathroom. I didn't feel too bad though as my wife spent the day watching some show on Starz where most of the characters spoke in a Scottish brogue so thick that I could only pick out a word here and there in the one episode I watched with her.
I came back to the real world when I shut the PS4 off and the first thing I saw was a report of a shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs. As of the last report I saw, 5 people had been injured and one had died. Most of the injured/killed were police.
And the first thing that I thought as I watched the report was that I was sorry. Certainly for the victims, but what I meant was more that I was sorry for the world. Cause it is evident that I am not doing something right here. I'm a citizen of this human race, and I am a part of every problem and every solution. And something just is not right. It just isn't. And I'm sorry that I don't know what that is.
I look around me and I see so many things that I don't understand. I don't understand how religion can play such a huge part in everything that is done and not done; how a religion can refuse to baptize people until they are old enough to disavow their family's beliefs and do so for the sake of preserving the sanctity of the family, or how people can follow their faith down a path that leads to the killing of others in the name of that faith. I don't understand how the actions of a few can lead to the hatred of and casting out of people of a particular religion, nor do I understand how we cannot seem to recall that history repeats itself. When we speak of closing our borders or registering people from a specific country, how does this not hearken back to the days of American isolationism prior to World War One or the placement of Japanese Americans into camps during World War Two? When we speak about refusing refugees from countries in turmoil, how is it that we have forgotten the Jews that we turned away during the early days of the second World War or of the entreaty that we have placed at Ellis Island to welcome our new immigrants- where we speak of the tired, huddled masses and our open arms welcoming them? I don't understand how our Constitution has become an Absolute document- where we point to the second amendment with pride and hold our guns in the air because it is our Right to carry them. I own guns, and I am thankful for the right to have them, but I don't understand why we can't find a better balance in our thinking where we can say maybe, just maybe, it is a little too easy to get your hands on one sometimes.
I don't understand how this can all be Obama's fault, how people can seriously believe that everything that one man says or does has a negative impact upon us all and that everything from his birth to his religion is evidently a lie to some. I don't understand how everything became about absolutes- right or wrong, black or white, left or right, Christian or not. I don't understand how the people around me can be so seemingly normal and likable yet still post xenophobic, offensive, racist, divisive, and incendiary content to social media with all appearances of believing the polemic dogma. I don't understand how our police can be vilified when a suspect is killed and also when one is not. I don't understand how innocent until proven guilty has seemingly been forgotten and how we try all of our cases in public well before we ever try them in court.
I know that I don't do enough. I don't change my profile picture to show support and solidarity for a country that falls victim to terrorism. I don't share my discomfort when others do change theirs for one incident but not for another, nor do I acknowledge my embarrassment that I like so many others didn't even know that an attack in Lebanon had preceded the one in France until the day after it happened. I don't speak out when I read the inflammatory rhetoric that is posted in the comments of other's thoughts or when nonsensical bullshit is presented as fact and forwarded and shared and posted ad nauseam, resurrecting itself year after year after year like an indestructible chain letter. I don't lend my voice to any cause; I don't offer my time, my mind, or my money to any charity. I don't keep an open mind about the things that I see and hear and read as often as I should.
I don't stand up and say this is ENOUGH. This needs to STOP. This is WRONG.
And I am sorry that I do not understand these things, that I do not do enough to facilitate change. I am sorry that today 5 people were hurt or killed and so many more were in fear for a period of time in my state. Because I share a responsibility for what happened today, both in Colorado Springs as well as in the Syrian desert. We all do, and maybe it is time for me to take more of that responsibility.
Because I greatly fear that what we are doing now just isn't working.
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