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IN THIS TIME
(Following the San Bernadino shootings - 12-3-15)
Violence in America is changing our perception of reality, both in our expectations of what might come to us from abroad as a measure of anti-American feeling and what might come to us from within our own borders.
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A threshold has been crossed within this country that is altering the picture of reality as we know it, bringing into the consciousness of many who held it only as a possibility before, the idea of America as a 'violent nation.' No longer are the acts of mass killings considered to be occasional, produced by those afflicted by mental instability, but rather the atmosphere of fear and the presence of lowered expectations regarding the continuity of a peaceful time, a time without violence, is growing.
The expectation of peace is not only disappearing because of acts of extreme and random violence against those who are not menacing or threatening in any way, but also because of increased awareness of white against black brutality which is the legacy of racial prejudice within this country whose roots lay deep within our culture. It is the combination of acts of mass violence, whether domestically or internationally initiated, plus the revelation of horrific acts of brutality by America's own officials in positions of power, that is changing the picture of what America is and what America is capable of.
Added to this is the increasing awareness, based on however vague a perception of life in other countries, that America, in its frequent mass shootings, exceeds this type of violence by far of any other developed or undeveloped nation. As a result, our sense of reality and of national identity is beginning to change so that the anticipation grows that new evidence of violence will continue to emerge.
In this time of revelation, what is desperately needed and presently lacking is an image of a way through to the other side of this. What is desperately needed is hope. And yet hope must come from a collective change of heart that reaches through the confusion of why all of this is happening to the knowledge of how to counteract it. This can only be done by a collective movement that must emerge that will allow the motivation of peace and unity to become stronger and the culture of power and retaliation as a measure of 'justice' to diminish.
Violence in America is changing our perception of reality, both in our expectations of what might come to us from abroad as a measure of anti-American feeling and what might come to us from within our own borders as yet another reflection of the ways in which we are not yet our brothers' and sisters' keepers. In this time, the most important promise is the one that we make to our own hearts and from our own hearts, the promise not to lose hope, the promise that the good within all and the love within all can surmount the cloud of darkness that is now most potently descending upon this nation.
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