This Violent Present

My mind is elsewhere tonight, not on gay schtuff. These United States are more fragile than I might have suspected, or rather the residents are.

In the middle of this "economic downturn," it seems people are taking up arms and randomly killing other people before killing themselves. It's a response to hardship that I don't particularly understand, but it is one that bears prayer and vigilance. Do I know anyone who, upon losing a livelihood, is likely to barge into some public place and open fire? Do I know anyone who will feel such a failure at providing for family that s/he will murder the whole family rather than ask for help? No one comes to mind, but if I did, what would I do?

I just read an essay speaking of the failure of the American dream, of people buying into the land of opportunity and feeling angry at not getting their piece of the pie. But this has always been true. Isn't this the story of the 1930s? Didn't Steinbeck write about that? What has happened to us as a culture that we turn to violence so quickly and easily? It's an old story for a failed businessman to take his own life---what is it that makes someone takes his (and let's face it, this appears to be a male phenomenon---no need to work so hard at inclusive language) own life, but not before taking out a dozen (give or take) others first?

Is it a sense of entitlement? We're Americans and we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and if we can't, then we're taking it out on as many people as we can? Is this the rugged individualism that has been warned about for decades, suddenly taken to it's most violent extreme?

It's easy to point to our fascination with violence in our entertainment. Violent movies and video games continue to make a lot of money and it's easy to blame the makers of these things for desensitizing us to violence, for making us violent. I think, however, that the fact that violence has become such a big part of our entertainment is only symptomatic of the violence that is exploding around us these days. Maybe it's simply a chicken/egg question: Which comes first, the violent entertainment or the hunger for violent entertainment?

A gay tangent---back in November, when California voted to repeal the right for same-sex couples to marry, there was immediate responses with rallies of protest, some of which reported some property damage and violent speech. (I don't know of any physical attacks on humans, much less killings.) This worried me. I understood the anger, but not the expression of it in property damage and threats. I don't know how this ties in, other than this blog is supposed to be about GLBT and religion and it seems that there is a certain segment of the GLBT population that is getting fed up with what it sees as religious people interfering with their lives.

I guess the connection is that we're all so . . . tightly wound, I guess. Everyone is feeling betrayed, belittled, disenfranchised . . .

The most disheartening thing is that people are getting angry and violent when they are affected. We're not getting angry when someone else is getting disenfranchised in some way. It does, in fact, seem to be an "every man for himself" scenario. Live and let live until you're the one being affected.

We've lost the humility, perhaps, to say, "It can happen to someone down to street, it can happen to me." Instead, we have only the pride to say, "This can't be happening to me and someone has to pay."

I'm at a loss, and this isn't why I started this blog, but this is where my mind is tonight.

Let us pray for our nation, our neighbors, our vigilance in watching and caring for our neighbors, and our own state of mind should misfortune befall us. We're very sick. Pray for healing.