I know horrific murders, suicides, beatings & rapes have continuously plagued the world since humans first wandered the earth...Maybe it's because I have gotten in the habit of reading google compiled news stories a few times a day but violence seems so disturbingly elevated right now, kind of like one of the many wake up calls that are sounding. Have you heard them? And even if such crimes aren't actually increasing, have you heard the wake up call that's been sounding since Cain's brother's blood cried out from the ground?the beautiful 5 year old, Shaniya, killed...her mother arrested for sex trafficing...
a 35 year old man kills his wife, their two teenage boys and himself...
a woman, who just an hour or so after being brought home by police after filing a domestic complaint against her boyfriend, stabbed to death by him while cops were posted outside her apartment building...he was shot and killed as police came in on the stabbing...too late...
an army major & psychatrist murders 14 innocent men & women at Fort Hood...
the 16 year old Richmond High School girl repeatedly raped and viciously beaten by at least 4 young males while up to 20 others looked on...for over 2 hours...there are no words...
and the list goes on and on and on...
What causes people to lash out at someone they love? Or to rape and beat a 4 year old girl, a 16 year old sophomore, a 70 year old grandmother they know nothing about? A husband to shoot his family while they are sleeping?
Hopelessness? Maybe. Many are without hope or they hope in things that are hopeless, evil. Consumed by the wrong things? With stuff of the world, addictions, twisted ideologies, themselves. They are full of stuff and empty at the same time. Tormented by their own hurt? They seek to hurt others as a perverted way to avenge those who have damaged them. And that is the truth. They, themselves, are damaged people. They were not born killers, abusers, rapists...they were once innocent newborns, blank slates, full of the potential to love and be loved. Lies are planted. Then...walls are erected. Many are self-built. Walls to protect, to numb, to confuse, to distract, to blame, to excuse, to hide behind. With those walls in tact, any human being is capable of despicable things, things no one would have thought that newborn, reaching for his first cookie, would ever do.
And how desensitized are 'we' to tragedies that happen minute by minute? Do we look away from truths that hurt us? Is it too hard to read about a little girl being sold into sex trade, being raped, dismembered? A woman raped, fingernails ripped from her hands, then burned to death? If it were a movie: much easier. Sadly so, even entertaining to some degree. But in real life isn't it just easier to turn the other way? And try to convince ourselves that we aren't ignorant, callous, self-absorbed?
Why is there so little rage when violence like this happens? Not outward rage but an inward crying out from those not personally related to the tragedy, a renewed sobering revelation that we live in a lost, sad, sick, hopeless world...And yet it seems that there is more rage, inner and outer, about how long she had to wait at the registry. If he stepped in something while walking the dog. If they hit a pothole and damaged rim and tire. If traffic is heavy on the way to work then later find out there was a car accident that killed 3 people as they were on the their way to school and work...
Are we so damaged, so walled off by our own hurts and fears, that we turn away from others' hurts much like those 20 who allowed the rape and beating of a 16 year old girl to go on and on and on...watching yet walled off, desensitized from what really matters: loving another human being? "I have my own pain, I don't need to deal with others' pain." Or worse yet, is our wall: "I am ok and that's what matters." Someone behind that wall might even say "Thank God this isn't happening to me or my family..." Others behind their wall of denial will say, "The world's always been a mess. Sad but that's just the way it is." And what they don't say (or maybe they do) is "so I will keep at a distance from all that bad news. I need to hear the good news."
Hours before they found Shaniya's little body, the TV news kept replaying a security camera video of a guy holding her, waiting for the elevator in a Comfort Inn...carrying her to her death & she was just resting in his arms, alert yet unaware...seems unreal but true and so completely heartbreaking...
Our hearts need to break. And as crazy as it seems, when that happens, we will truly have hope. And others will see that hope in us.
Don't miss the news...sadly, there's more every day...
Richmond Highschool gang rape
Husband kills sons, wife, himself
Police: Body is that of North Carolina girl, Shaniya
Shaniya's story reveals widespread sex trafficking in black community
Hundreds say goodbye to Bolingbrook soldier killed at Ft. Hood
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