Time for NOT Understanding is Done

 

                                                                 photo from the Telegraph by: Getty

 

Time for NOT Understanding is Done

    

Time for NOT Understanding is Done

This reflection started mid-December after the Connecticut shootings in America where 20 children and 6 adults were killed by a young man.  This reflection started when I heard myself say  “I really don’t understand.”  I kept hearing this same sentiment from friends,  strangers in the streets,  radio announcers and call in programs. I even heard these words from Buddhist nun and spiritual mentor, Ani Pema Chodron .

Not sure what shook me out of my disbelief, out of my not understanding perhaps it was the image of a friend‘s 10 year old child pointing his plastic gun directly at her facebook friends from her profile picture; perhaps it was the interview I watched with film maker Quentin Tarantino who directs and produces violent films under the disguise of art and who blasted his interviewer recently for suggesting violence in films perpetuates violence in society;   perhaps it was the beginnings of the ‘Idle No More’ movement  and  the reminder of a violence that has/is killing generations of people in many different ways, a history that many of us to do not want to take responsibility for; perhaps it was the electric blue hard candy ring my four year old friend was sucking with such pleasure and happiness;  perhaps it was news of the burnt down garment factory in Bangladesh  where 112  workers were killed and where Wallmart purchases their clothes;   perhaps it was a close relative of mine who blamed the Middle East for violence world-wide; perhaps it was the rapper who said she believed it is the parents responsibility to censor what their kids listen to;  perhaps it was the man on cbc call in program who lost his job due to his disability and felt deep frustration at a system that preached free health care for all;   perhaps it was the news of a young man from our community who is in jail for theft and the unforgiving reaction of some of his friends and community; perhaps it was the recent news of Obama’s ‘Kill List’ resulting in bombs being dropped and children  being killed in the name of freedom and democracy;  perhaps it was the word ‘crazy’ I began to hear over and over, thrown around carelessly to describe people who displayed emotions, behaviours, attitudes that did not conform to mainstream;   perhaps it was witnessing the boy down the road crying and being slapped for acting like a girl. 

Perhaps the time is now to understand we all have the potential to do violence, support violence, misunderstand violence, promote, ignore and laugh at violence. And many of us do so under the disguise of freedom of speech, or constitutional rights, or under the belief that we live in an ideal world where all kids have parents who will guide them through the violence with critical minds and open hearts.

Perhaps the time is now to begin understanding that we live in a ‘connect the dot’ world where everything effects everything, where all acts of violence exist within a context;  a context that begins in the centre of all of us and reaches far and wide.      

Perhaps it is not until we realize that much of what we label incomprehensible is comprehensible and that the time for not understanding is done and the time for understanding is now.