...when they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. when it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift—the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock. the Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. this made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.
“why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “why do you look so dejected? you will be accepted if you do what is right. but if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. but you must subdue it and be its master.”
one day Cain suggested to his brother, “let’s go out into the fields.” and while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him.
afterward the Lord asked Cain, “where is your brother? where is Abel?”
“i don’t know,” Cain responded. “am I my brother’s keeper?”
but the Lord said, “what have you done? listen! your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!
--Genesis 4:2-10
“for if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”
― thomas more
― thomas more
"even if the whole world were to fall to pieces, the unity of the psyche would never be shattered. and the wider and more numerous the fissures on the surface, the more the unity is strengthened in the depths.
--carl jung
Civilization in Transition (1964)
in my professional life, i spend a lot of time with little people and their parents. the vast majority of the people i see and interact with during the span of a working week are between 3 and 11 years old. while i can't pretend to know or understand the depth of grief being felt by the Sandy Hook families, or the Lanza family, i know enough to be humbled by the relief that comes from knowing all my little faces are safe, today.
this is an altogether different kind of thing...i'm not even sure what kind of word to assign to Friday's event in Connecticut. all i know is that it's awful, and ugly, and scary. and no matter how far we follow whatever rabbit holes are left to us, i cannot imagine that anything we learn will make us feel any better. i know that we must follow those trails, however slight or strange they may be, because even though it won't make us feel better, i hope like hell we can at least learn something.
and i also know this is not the first time i've had to figure out an artful, non-scary way to address a very adult and scary topic with small people, and find some kind of meaningful ways to comfort and reassure their parents. and i am sick of this shit, people. just sick of it. we do not have to live like this. we don't. and most of us, on a day-in-day-out, where we live and move and have our being--we DON'T live like this.
but then there are random Fridays, and you imagine that all you have to do is buy your first Christmas tree, and pack the car, and wrap a present for your oldest nephew, and you'll just listen to NPR on the way to get the nail taken out of the back tire of your husband's vehicle, and you realize in a powerful way that we DO live like this...
the thing that happens after one of these events (and G-d, how awful is it that there's a pattern to follow...seriously?) started happening before anyone even really had an idea of what had really happened. "news" and "facts" become sort of fluid and floaty, and the thing you know for most certain is that some awful and terrible is happening, but nothing beyond that can be confirmed. and then some of the smoke starts to clear, and some solid actual information becomes known. and then, some jerks with microphones start talking and prognosticating and pontificating, and everything that's really worth talking about is blotted out with station logos, commercial breaks, and retired specialists who can give you every scenario you need to have nightmares for days, without actually giving you any legitimate and accurate information. and you know some douchebag is going to say it's because we don't allow G-d in schools, or because we don't have kindergarten teachers who pack heat...
***this is the part where i get up on my soap box, so if you're not up for that, go right back to facebook, and have a nice day.***
here's what i have to say to douchebags who blame this on "not allowing G-d in schools"--and i'm looking right at you, former Governor Mike Huckabee. this statement is reductive to the point of being blasphemous, and people who espouse it should be deeply and profoundly ashamed to have such a small and faithless witness for G-d in the world. shame on you. G-d, or at least the G-d i know doesn't work that way.
i'd be so excited to get to have a cup of coffee with you, and tell you about how big my G-d is, how much my G-d loves, how sad my G-d is about this, and how i know that had G-d not been present in that school (and bidden or not, G-d IS present)...well, we are very lucky that G-d was there. additionally, stop saying things that aren't true about the separation of church and state. again, this is highly reductive, and not helpful, and NOT true. what is true is that we're not all baptists, or methodists, or christians, or jews, or hindus, or jains, or buddhists, or zoroastrians, or neo-druids, or believers of any stripe. but none of those identifiers mean that G-d loves us any less, or is any less present or active in our lives and world. and while i am angry with you, more than anger, i feel great pity toward you. i hope that you don't feel as alone and scared and unsure as you sound. i'm totally seriously about that cup of coffee...
to the douchebags who say that teachers should pack heat, i have to say this: Are you freaking kidding me? Rick Perry and others--get your heads out of your asses. that opinion is not limited to Rick Perry, not by a long shot. i've seen it around my own little universe, and it makes me sick and sad. this is NOT about guns. JESUS. i mean, yeah, we need to talk about guns. but if you're dumb enough to believe that adding more guns to the equation is going to make things better, that's the biggest reason you're not fit to lead the country. one more gun, or one more person with a concealed carry license isn't going to reduce gun violence, even in extreme cases. it's just one more gun on the streets.
you wanna know the real reason we want to hurt each other? it's as old as our oldest stories...we are jealous, we are broken, we hurt. and in our jealousy, our brokenness, our hurt, we grab the heavy or hard thing closest to us, and whale away, until we see red, until the noise stops, until the magazine runs out or the cops come, and then...well, by then it's all over but the crying. and that is far too late. all the guns, violent games and movies, objectification of relationships, bigotry, hate, all of it...all of it boils down to our hurt and brokenness coming out in blazing and startling technicolor. it's been millenia since we first heard the story of cain and abel...why can't we do better? why are we still fumbling around in the dark, looking for ways to hide the blood, clean up the mess, cover up the lies and the wounds, instead of making things right?
there will be people who will claim that nothing meaningful can be done, who will "yeah, but" in the face of every articulated solution, who will demand that things must change, but will not be willing to be the ones to do the changing. and it will be hard to love them. but we have to. we have to love them, and keep in contact and conversation with them, even when we want to run away or call them dumbs. they feel the same way, right back at us. but we are all in this together. we have to remember that. we have to keep and hold and love each other. we are our brother's keeper, and they are ours, too.
mil besos,
rmj
