Weekend Reflections

As the nation is still grasping what happened in Orlando this weekend, I’ve quickly seen multiple posts from everything regarding shock and sadness, which is what we expect to debates about the "why" with most of those stemming from more political issues – the blame of a religion, the criticism of lack of gun control. 

I can’t possibly begin to understand what drives someone to do such a thing as what happened and I’ve never hated anything or anyone so much that I would want to cause bodily harm and I’m sure most people are like this, which is why we struggle with the why because it is so foreign to comprehend.

Hate is a dangerous thing and we have lots of examples throughout history where we can show exactly what hate can bring about, yet we don’t discuss hate, instead these tragedies become politicized. And what happens when we do this?   

Everyone wants to provide their opinion and is quick to condemn, without pause – without reflection. Yes, the world wants answers, but 50 people were attacked and killed without cause. And I truly feel like when people so quickly start turning these events into political agenda items – we lose sight of what we should be doing, which is providing support.

My feed is full of people making their stances on their assumptions of what needs to happen and I’m over here thinking, 50 people were murdered and ONE person was responsible, ONE person did this, ONE person. There is no justification in what he did, absolutely none! I can’t possible begin to understand what drives someone to such a point, but what I also don’t understand is how people can start using this to push their own agenda spewing hate to Christians, to Muslims, to pro-gun supporters, to LBGTQ, I don’t get it. We will never, ever, fully understands what drives people to do horrific actions, but on some level, it is intensified by hate.

And I’m so tired of it – if you have a social media account, look at it - everyone all of sudden thinks they know the answer as the media spends countless hours feeding our assumptions, furthering our own belief systems, our own hate instead of grieving for the lives lost, for these families. We think we are showing our support, but if you have seen Twitter lately, the hate that is being lashed out is bewildering to me because it’s not towards the perpetrator. And all too often it seems like when tragedies like this happen, this is the result – let’s make this a political issue and divide more people.

Yet instead of saying no more, we allow our politicians to exploit these tragedies to their advantage, we allow the division, we allow the judgements, we allow the fostering of hate. Because we someone are lead to believe that if we only had X, Y, and Z in place through this bill, act, or legislation we could prevent this or that from happening and this is false. We will never be able to prevent these tragedies because someone who is filled with such hate that they are willing to take the life of others, is not reasonable and will do whatever regardless if there are rules and regulations in place, how can we simply ignore this and not acknowledge it?

I’m deeply saddened by what happened in Orlando, but instead of politicizing this, what if we chose to be a little more empathic, to be a little more supportive and more compassionate to everyone who is touched by this tragedy, instead becoming more divided and removed. And we do see some of these things happening like the donation line for blood – the supportive community that follows is what should be spoken about and encouraged. I for one am tired of the spreading of hate and would much rather see a movement raising the bar of awareness and being a part of community that fosters an understanding of all backgrounds rather than trying to make this a left or right issue.

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. . . . We need not wait to see what others do.” Mahatma Gandhi