A letter to my sister.
Hi Tam:
Today New Zealand voted for love, 77 to 44 in favour of same sex
marriage. Today America voted for violence, 54 to 46, against
background
checks for those wishing to buy guns. In New Zealand the gallery
spontaneously erupted into a traditional Maori love song. In the US
Senate gallery there were calls of 'Shame on you!' as the vote was
counted. To me that about sums it up. The US has lost its mind. Some
American said something about how the rest of the world looked at the US
with bewilderment - how it seemed quite crazy, this fascination with
guns and gun culture. He or she was right. Can't speak for the rest of
the world but here in Australia, the US appears as though it's gone
collectively off its rocker. Madness twinned with paranoia fueled by
testosterone and steroids. Hate fueled by fear. Why so frightened?
What is everyone afraid of? Retribution?
When Martin Bryant shot and killed 35 people and injured 21 others at
Port Arthur in Tasmania the then conservative government was galvanized
into action. In order to own a gun you had to have a license. Hundreds
of thousands of guns were surrendered (there was a recent amnesty of
unlicensed firearms in which even more guns were surrendered). The
keeping of guns in strictly regulated. Richard has (licensed) guns
which he keeps in a secure padlocked cabinet. Ammunition is kept
separately. The police have been out to check that he adheres to the
regulations. Richard is very much in favour of gun ownership but
accepts with not too much grumbling the way things are in Oz.
And then of course you get the homegrown loonies like the Boston
bomber. I suspect you are right, Tam and he or she is insane. There's a
grown man up the road. He's in his 40's and lives with his quiet and
unassuming parents. His dad is a friend of ours. When this 'boy' gets
agitated he gets scary if he's not on his medication. The neighbour brought
Richard his guns for safekeeping when the son was having an episode
(over an aged cat that desperately needed, for humane reasons, to be
euth'd). That's all it takes. The parents are rightfully frightened of
this big burly 'kid' but can't/won't have him committed. Is the bomber
such a person? There are so many 'mad' people out there. Mad people
that are afraid and therefore find reasons to hate. Hate comes from
fear, don't you think? You can't hate unless you're afraid.
It's all so sad.
One of my favourite movies is Love Actually. I'm sure you've seen it.
During the opening monologue Hugh Grant talks about how when the planes
were going down during 9/11, the passengers, knowing they were going to
die, rang their loved ones to tell them they loved them. They didn't
ring their enemies to tell them they hated them. Love is our natural
state. Despite all the madness in the world, I still believe that.
And I love you,
Holly
Showing posts with label Love Actually. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love Actually. Show all posts
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Signs and Portents
Unless you've been living in a cave, you know the world is supposed to end tomorrow. I'm not sure how that works with the time zones. Does the end start as a wave and work its way around the world? Australia is a day ahead of America. Does the world end tomorrow for us and the 22nd (Oz time) for the US? I'm glad I'm not in charge for it's a conundrum.
Saw the psyhic John Edwards on Dr. Phil. He was asked whether he thought the end of the world was nigh. He thought not. What he did think was that a major shift in our perceptions would occur. I would like to believe that we are waking up to what we sow, we reap. The Newtown massacre of children has become a wake up call for Americans in a way that the other massacres did not. It was the slaughter of innocence. Shooting college kids or teenagers at the cinema while a tragedy, well, they've been around a bit, they've seen a little, they had some life behind them. But these babies had it all snatched away. And the ones spared will never be the same. How do you explain that kind of evil to a 5 year old? To explain is to destroy whatever wide-eyed trust is left. I suspect some of those kids don't understand much more than a 'bad man' took away their friends and classmates.
Now in India a 23 year old med student was gang raped on a bus by 6 men, beaten with iron rods, stripped and thrown on the side of the road. She is on life support because of the severity of her injuries, many of them internal. The mind cannot comprehend. India is the worst place in the world to be a woman, worse than Pakistan (which is pretty bad) and Afghanistan. Twenty thousand women were raped in Mombai? New Delhi? last year. The judicial system is so grindingly slow that it can take 10 to 15 years for the case to go to court. Many cases of rape go unreported because of the supposed slur or because of the length of time required to go to court. I'm not sure I could maintain the rage for 15 years. It's been an ongoing problem because of the way Indians view women. Now, spontaneously, the populace has risen up and demonstrated, even protesting in such numbers outside some high official's home (the article didn't say who) that water cannon were used to disperse the crowd.
We have the Arab spring (which has slid into winter in some places), we have America talking gun control (finally!) and India examining its opinion of women. Germany is going all out to meet their energy needs with renewables, animal welfare is in the headlines almost on a daily basis, climate change, while stalled as far as world governments are concerned, is riding a groundswell of public opinion (because the public cops the fallout) which will result in real change. Although sometimes I despair that we will ever rise above the heavy dross of our gross corporeality and be and behave as the Shining Beings we are, I do see, with the signs and portents of great good in reaction to great evil across the world, that we will Arrive.
I keep thinking of the opening monologue of the movie Love Actually. When the passengers on the planes of 9/11 knew they were doomed, they didn't ring their enemies to have the last word, they rang their loved ones to speak of love. In times of great crisis we strip away the superfluous and become our essence, which is love. But we forget, we get distracted, we believe ourselves to be our ego rather than our spirit. It is not hopeless but it is hard. I hope the End of the World is the end of blindness, that the scales fall from our eyes and we see, really See.
Saw the psyhic John Edwards on Dr. Phil. He was asked whether he thought the end of the world was nigh. He thought not. What he did think was that a major shift in our perceptions would occur. I would like to believe that we are waking up to what we sow, we reap. The Newtown massacre of children has become a wake up call for Americans in a way that the other massacres did not. It was the slaughter of innocence. Shooting college kids or teenagers at the cinema while a tragedy, well, they've been around a bit, they've seen a little, they had some life behind them. But these babies had it all snatched away. And the ones spared will never be the same. How do you explain that kind of evil to a 5 year old? To explain is to destroy whatever wide-eyed trust is left. I suspect some of those kids don't understand much more than a 'bad man' took away their friends and classmates.
Now in India a 23 year old med student was gang raped on a bus by 6 men, beaten with iron rods, stripped and thrown on the side of the road. She is on life support because of the severity of her injuries, many of them internal. The mind cannot comprehend. India is the worst place in the world to be a woman, worse than Pakistan (which is pretty bad) and Afghanistan. Twenty thousand women were raped in Mombai? New Delhi? last year. The judicial system is so grindingly slow that it can take 10 to 15 years for the case to go to court. Many cases of rape go unreported because of the supposed slur or because of the length of time required to go to court. I'm not sure I could maintain the rage for 15 years. It's been an ongoing problem because of the way Indians view women. Now, spontaneously, the populace has risen up and demonstrated, even protesting in such numbers outside some high official's home (the article didn't say who) that water cannon were used to disperse the crowd.
We have the Arab spring (which has slid into winter in some places), we have America talking gun control (finally!) and India examining its opinion of women. Germany is going all out to meet their energy needs with renewables, animal welfare is in the headlines almost on a daily basis, climate change, while stalled as far as world governments are concerned, is riding a groundswell of public opinion (because the public cops the fallout) which will result in real change. Although sometimes I despair that we will ever rise above the heavy dross of our gross corporeality and be and behave as the Shining Beings we are, I do see, with the signs and portents of great good in reaction to great evil across the world, that we will Arrive.
I keep thinking of the opening monologue of the movie Love Actually. When the passengers on the planes of 9/11 knew they were doomed, they didn't ring their enemies to have the last word, they rang their loved ones to speak of love. In times of great crisis we strip away the superfluous and become our essence, which is love. But we forget, we get distracted, we believe ourselves to be our ego rather than our spirit. It is not hopeless but it is hard. I hope the End of the World is the end of blindness, that the scales fall from our eyes and we see, really See.
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