A quote worth pondering:
“I was sitting in Fred Rogers’ office… talking … about children and violence, on a Tuesday, that was the moment that the shootings at Columbine were happening. When Eric and Dylan were shooting their classmates. It was exactly what we were talking about….
And what I had said was ‘there’s three simple words or ideas that you can apply to a rich life … you say that there’s something beautiful, something noble, something sacred.’
…Just a brief example of what I mean by that:
…The sunset—if we allow it to touch us—do you and I take time in our daily lives? And I’m talking about seconds—to consciously be moved or touched by something we consider beautiful?
If either of those two kids [Eric and Dylan,] thought there was a single thing in the world—a word, an idea, a song, a rock group, a movie, a bird, a person, a religion—if there was a single thing in the world that either of those kids thought was beautiful, noble, or sacred, they never could have done what they did.
And then I realized with a shudder that—is it possible that tens of millions of Americans don’t feel they have any time for beautiful, noble, or sacred in the vicious crushing pace in this life about: wanting stuff and getting stuff and having stuff and using stuff and buying stuff and then of course replacing stuff, repairing stuff, protecting stuff, defending stuff.
You know that it’s so vicious, it’s anti-life.”
–spoken by Bob Lozoff, transcribed from on-camera interview in the documentary Mr. Rogers and Me (available free on Amazon Prime video.)
This is me now. I, Judy Emerson, have strong personal feelings about the wisest course for America in the aftermath of mass gun violence. We are all shaken, but the adrenaline speeds your reactions in a different direction than mine. I will set aside my temptation to spout statistics and pound my fist on the table.
But—it’s like he said, that getting stuff and protecting stuff and defending stuff is anti-life. I agree with him. What is it we insist on protecting? We are yelling at each other to defend—what? A position? An object? Stuff? Or even the right to have stuff?
Wherever we believe blame can be pinned for mass violence, what if we changed the subject to our own life, our own conscience? What about coming back to the one power each of us can actually wield? The power of choice over our own thoughts, speech, actions. I have no power over yours.
If I focus on mine, and you focus on yours, what if we all considered this:
Are my thoughts, speech, actions promoting or defending life? Or stuff?
Hmmmm.
