I provided a segue from my last post to this one, saying I was going to share how I became connected with my new hero, Dr. Thomas Sowell - but first - a moment to acknowledge the "March For Our Lives" that is being held today in Washington DC.
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Okay. Some thoughts.
It is unfathomably sad, grievous and an abomination that schoolchildren are gunned down at school. I know how it feels to have guns pulled on me in a public place. In 1988, I worked as a bank teller in Tulsa, Oklahoma and was present at 2 armed bank robberies during the 1 year I worked there. On both occasions, 2 men suddenly burst through the bank doorway and told us all to lie down on the ground while they took the money in our teller drawers. Guns were wielded and waved around but no shots were fired. The day after the first robbery, I phoned my mother crying on the way to work and could only make it through a half-day once I got there. One of the other bank tellers never made it back to that branch because of the traumatic after-effects she suffered.
The survivors of school shootings or any event like that are never the same. Other similar happenings from the past include the post-office shooting that coined the term "going postal"; the McDonald's and Luby's buffet shootings; and the grocery store shootings that occurred in the 80's (Note: Please forgive that I am not giving stats and links to these events and feel free to clarify in comments section if you wish - I just don't have the time in my life at this point to include all of the data and get any blogging accomplished! Please utilize internet searches ;) ). Anyway...
What I am saying is that the pain is REAL and we were not meant as human beings to suffer trauma. My heart goes out to the response of human beings who want to DO something substantial about this problem that, because of our constant access to media, is brought to our knowledge. Every person who hears of the bad news of a terror attack, a shooting of unsuspecting innocent people, and other horrors the news brings to our awareness is traumatized by the hearing of that news and the knowledge it brings.
The pain experienced by us humans of carrying knowledge the ever-present media provides to us (whether we want it or not) provokes in us a TRUE human response. It says loud and clear, from a deep primal place of knowing, "NO! THIS SHOULD NOT BE! WE MUST STOP THIS!" I too have this response of "NO!!!"
What adds to the pain between us humans is the resulting FIGHT BETWEEN HUMAN BEINGS emanating from the emotional response. This is WRONG. This ADDS to the pain. It does not solve it, alleviate it, soothe it; in fact it MAKES IT WORSE because people become DIVIDED. People become divided who AGREE about the KEY PROBLEM which, in this case is, KIDS (AND ANYONE ELSE) SHOULD NOT BE GETTING KILLED BY GUNS IN SCHOOLS.
So now there is a March For Our Lives today, but it is ALIENATING a whole group of PEOPLE who AGREE about the SAME KEY PROBLEM. For instance, the NRA is being demonized. Instead of dialoguing with the NRA - (some are, but we are not hearing about these dialogues in the mainstream media - only in conservative outlets) - the entire NRA as a group is demonized. President Trump is demonized and blamed. Conservatives are demonized and blamed. Conservatives who also do not want people getting killed in shootings are blamed. But these things cannot be talked about because PEOPLE are not able to REGULATE THEIR EMOTIONS and talk with one another, BELIEVING THE BEST FOR EACH OTHER.
Without the ability to regulate emotions, NO ONE CAN TALK about the problems in our society and NO ONE CAN BEGIN to solve them. All that can be done is FIGHT.
THERE HAS GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY.
Well - I apologize, but I do not have time to talk about the first parts of the title of this entry today - I must get to work on my STATISTICS and other PhD ASSIGNMENTS.
I will save Social Work, Thomas Sowell and Christ Phenomenology for the next post - which I will not promise to do tomorrow - but will try.
John 16:33 - Jesus said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation: but take courage; I have overcome the world."
(New American Standard Bible)
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