Today, though, it joins the list of the places where those with guns and other lethal devices have turned their weapons on innocent people and caused terrible harm to others. The wounds of Aurora, Colorado are for sure still fresh in our hearts and we will never forget the tragedies at schools such as Columbine and on college campuses and federal buildings, in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, at the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11, and the list, tragically, goes on and on here and abroad as in Norway and too many other places around the globe...
The big picture question that wells up within me today after the incident at 34th St. in New York is why aggressors target innocents whether it be in attacks such as the one in New York or anywhere else? Is there some other way for people who are angry against a certain group, against the world, against some other religious group or country, to get out their 'angries' without harming the life of innocents?
In the Hollywood comedy flick "Analyze This", Billy Crystal's character tells Robert DeNiro's character to 'hit a pillow' instead of going after other people.
While this example seems trivial, it suggests a simple premise that, ideally, we could provide ways for people across the world to manage their anger by directing it in non-lethal directions. Angry at 'The West' for its 'degeneracy'? Help us demolish homes and structures in festering slums in order to make room for new housing and sanitation projects. Angry at the government for its inability to 'turn the economy around'? Here is a free membership to your local boxing gym where an instructor will train you until you get exhausted and stop or until you become a contender in the ring. Angry at the inability of social change organizations to create real and lasting change? Help us by coming in to tear up old and dusty mission statements and strategic plans that you can then drop into the shredder for recycling. I now understand that the initial murder in this shooting spree was a former employee shooting a boss or supervisor who fired him a year ago. Angry about being fired or downsized? You will now be an athletics training partner with paralympians and special olympians who may never have had the same abilities or opportunities to work as you, and we'll see how you feel after trying to keep up with their skills and spirit. The possibilities are endless.
All these strategies are, I believe, rational approaches to a human tendency toward violence and conflict. The inherent problem with such strategies, then, is that the people who commit the violence against innocents are not necessarily rational and we cannot necessarily identify them in advance.
And so the approach must be an approach that is educational and preventive. Perhaps we might envision "Get Your Anger Out" centers on college campuses and in workplaces. We might imagine character curricula in schools that teach and model ways to express anger in productive and constructive ways.
And in this educational effort we might wish to teach a Jewish teaching that I return to often. 'How do we know a person? -- By one's anger, one's pocket, and one's cup."
Working in reverse order: We know someone by their 'cup', literally their drinking cup, meaning their temperance, their ability to make decisions about setting limits and their ability to set up a healthy relationship with both the people and things of the world. We know someone by their 'pocket', by the way they use and spend their money and resources.
Finally, we know someone by their 'anger': What angers the person and how does he-she express that anger?
I challenge all of us to find ways to allow anger to be expressed in a healthy and constructive way in our country.
The lives of innocent people depend on our efforts.
Its the USA government responsible for the mess as they do not have the gun control and any body can keep the gun , the why to repent for some thing which u have u r self created the mess.
ReplyDelete