My Violent Death Is More Important Than Yours

Until today, I subscribed to the Consistent Life organization’s email newsletter “Peace and Life Connections.” I’m pro-life, believing that all life is sacred and that, in concert w/ Feminists for Life, abortion primarily means we as a society still aren’t doing enough for women and children. I also hold to a pro-life stance as an adoptee, born out of wedlock to a mother who with little choice in her day nurtured me to term and birthed me to life.  But today, I read this in issue #156, the April 19^th “Peace and Life Connections” newsletter:

It’s easy to account for why the outrage at the Boston Marathon got media coverage overshadowing the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Even though his 8 counts of murder (7 infants, 1 woman) and mass injury were greater than that at Boston, in Boston it was concentrated in time, new, and very public, whereas Gosnell’s carnage stretched over years and behind closed doors.

I immediately unsubscribed.  I mean seriously?  The pro-life movement is now resorting to death one-upmanship??  The deaths of an 8-year-old boy, a Chinese international graduate student, and a beloved young woman just getting started in her life are less newsworthy because fewer people died?  The young boy’s 6-year old sister losing her leg, his mother suffering brain trauma, and the many other amputations and injuries don’t deserve the media attention they received?  Seriously?

I detest the taking of innocent unborn infants’ developing lives, making these souls the enemy of women, hiding the reality of their slaughter in medical terms—embryo, fetus, abortion procedure.  That the U.S. annual abortion rate is still over 1 million is abhorrent, a sign as I see it that our society is dysfunctional to the core and has a whole lotta work to do on behalf of our women and children. 

But trivializing the carnage that took place in Boston as a pro-life argument—especially in a newsletter self-identifying as an organization of peace, life, and connection—is offensive and wholly inexcusable.  

I was already troubled by the silence of pro-life organizations at the extreme war on women waged over the past campaign year and still ongoing in many states.  It’s not just pro-choice advocates creating an adversarial relationship between women and their unborn babies.

Conservative, mostly male, state and federal policy makers are likewise arguing a similar dichotomy, with women the enemy of the unborn rather than the other way around.  Women are judged as virtually criminal & deadly perpetrators along w/ their health care providers, their bodies deserving invasive probing if not state prosecution and disciplinary action as well.
   
I kept looking and waiting for someone, anyone, in the pro-life movement to take a public stance against invasive proposals by 2012 candidates and state legislators.  I checked the Feminists for Life site just before writing this blog, hoping they'd of course take a stand for women, but if they have offered any public commentary, it's not clearly presented.  The silence, especially of feminist pro-life advocates—ostensibly equally pro-woman—is unacceptable.

Violence and brutality are intolerable wherever they occur, period.  There’s no violent death contest where some brutal deaths “win” and are more deserving of media attention, public response, and personal reflection than others.  On one of the news reports today, one of the reporters, commenting on the terrorist act at the Boston Marathon, suggested that such acts of less major terrorism (as contrasted for example w/ the 9/11 tragedies) are now a reality that we in the U.S. just need to get used to.

No.  We do not need to “just get used to it.”  We do not have to accept the violence infesting the global community in which we all live. We can choose to challenge it:  within our own lives and relationships, as well as together in our communities and in our world.  We can choose not to judge each other or other living beings as less deserving of life, as threatening, as enemies.
  

There are no easy answers to life’s complexities in a hurting world confronting all manner of violent trauma, suffering, oppression, brutality, intolerance, famine, war...  But non-violence is a choice.  And seriously exploring and pursuing non-violent solutions to the difficulties we share is our choice. 

Humans. Animals. Peace

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct.  Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit.  The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread.  But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought.  Let us work that this time may come. 

We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.—Albert Schweitzer

          It can be so anger-inducing and heart-wrenching to watch the news these days:  an addiction to guns that surpasses comprehension, while guns continue to kill; threats of a trans-Pacific nuclear war; reports of ongoing oppression, gross & destructive oil spills invading delicate ecosystems and now even our neighborhoods, hate, violence here in the U.S. and around the world; angry politicians fighting aggressively to curtail education and financial assistance to the poor.

        Today, I need to speak about animals, and how we as humans treat them.  Why?  A week ago Tuesday, someone brutally beat in the head one of the old-timer free-roaming cats living at one of the stray/feral colonies I help feed in my home town; Luther was carried to a dumpster and left next to it to slowly, painfully die of the injuries inflicted upon him by some hateful human being, for no reason.  And I can't remain silent about such deliberately violent cruelty.  

          When my fellow care-taker called my that evening, in tears, to tell me the horrible news about Luther, I was showing the film The Laramie Projectin my college writing classes.  The film centers on the community of Laramie Wyoming, in the wake of the brutal, deadly beating of college student Matthew Shepard in 1998.  Shepard was beaten just b/c he was gay.  His killer had so much hate for gays, that he tied Shepard to a rural fence, beat him to unconsciousness, and left him there to die.  Luther was beaten and left to die next to a dumpster simply b/c his life was likewise considered worthless and his suffering of no concern if not deserved.

          If Schweitzer above is correct about their being a cosmic relationship between our treatment of animals and our human ability to secure peace, then it’s no wonder our nightly news is so ugly: we humans can’t even treat other humans with respect, tolerance, or the simplest of kindness; we treat animals abysmally.  

         We subject animals of all species to outright cruelty—as “discipline”; for our gluttonous appetites…gotta have our meat!; for our entertainment and amusement; for income if not profit; as a way of living.

         We neglect and abandon them when they become inconvenient, pregnant, sick or injured, walking away from them as easily as an unwanted piece of furniture.  We leave them on chains, isolated, unable to flee from danger, exposed to the elements, with little thought.  We let them run loose, unaltered, to impregnate females in heat, or to become pregnant litter after litter after litter, taking our anger out on them for bringing more unwanted babies into our lives.

         We don’t speak up for them when standing against cruelty is demanded of us.  But as my friend Bill Snow used to tell me, “you have a choice: you can be part of the problem or part of the solution; if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”  At best we’re guilty of negligence if not complicity when we choose not to speak out against all animal violence & cruelty…at worst, we’re condoning if not aiding and abetting animal suffering. 

         I abhor the callousness with which humans actively participate in, condone, and ignore the human-caused cruelty and suffering of animals.  And when I see such callousness in the college students I teach, it brings me to my knees in despair for the future…of both animals and humans.

        What I most abhor is those who use Christianity to defend their cruelty, clinging to God’s call to humanity to “have dominion” over creation as a carte blanche to do whatever they choose to feeling, sentient beings while insisting they are image bearers of the Prince of Peace.  My Christian faith practice demands of me a holistic pro-life ethic that applies not just to unborn babies but to all of creation.

            I came to Jesus long before moving to the rural South--America's "Bible Belt"--just around the time I became eligible to join the American Association of Retired Persons.  Thank God.  Because if I'd been a seeker when I moved here, I soon would've rejected Jesus outright, possibly forever (though thankfully, I don't believe Jesus would ever have let go of me!), and a fair share of the reason for that would have been directly related to how I've seen and heard far too many self-identified Christians relate w/ animals, including animals they insist they love and care for..."Callous" doesn't even begin to describe the common attitude.

          Far too much war, violence, oppression, pain, and death has inflicted in the name of Jesus, including by deliberate choice or gross thoughtlessness against living, non-human creatures.  People, it has to stop.

          There are some folks who try to establish an either/or dichotomy for kindness and compassion, as if these character traits and actions toward others are non-renewable resources:  "How can you care so much about animals when children are starving?!" or "First we have to take of the needs of humans before we concern ourselves w/ animals."
  
           Baloney!!  Such ridiculous posturing is a shameful cop out.  As if love, especially the love of God, is a dwindling commodity that we must dole out with great care.  Caring for animals is not a waste of resources.  And I always wonder just how much such naysayers are themselves doing for their fellow humans.  Anyone who identifies him or herself as a follower of Jesus I would expect to live extending lovingkindness freely to all living being, believing that as God is infinite, so is God's love.   

          It broke my heart when one of the cats I feed outside my front door brought me a gift this morning, a poor, tiny dead mouse, leaving it on the door mat for my pleasure. He was being a cat.  But the neglect and often gleeful brutality too many humans...too many Americans...too many individuals who say they love animals...inflict on animals is our choice.  We humans must choose differently, effective now, right now.  I believe Schweitzer, above, is right: if we choose to continue as we are, then we must expect a world filled w/ violence, turmoil, and fear, not only for ourselves but for our children...and their children.  Our choices have consequences.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Cats, Dominant Thoughts, Channeling Peace

In my last blog, I questioned our collective focus on violence, our mutual obsession with what threatens us, what causes us fear. But our collaborative, cultural dis-ease—which permeates the air we breathe, which we teach to our children and our children’s children—is, I realized again today, only part of our problem. At least it’s only part of my problem. My own focus in my own daily life is a large slice of my inner unrest as well.

I live w/ a bunch of rescue cats, who all showed up at my front door and who’ve made my daily life constant chaos and frustration. I, w/ 3 other good-hearted individuals, also feed strays in a community in the South where I constantly confront not only a general attitude of apathy toward animals, but a determined resistance to animal welfare. There’s also a culturally common disregard for the environment and a love for gas-guzzling machinery that makes my heart hurt. And there’s an all-to-prevalent, constant, concerted, deliberate resistance to new information or change. I don’t mean the kind of resistance to change we all have w/in us; I mean a hard core distrust if not hatred of new facts or transformation, of anyone who brings those new facts or seeks even slight transformation. I constantly wallow in such frustrations, seeing no end, no solution, no possibility for change. But that’s not all that plagues me.

I regularly read Facebook posts that glory in what’s wrong w/ everyone else and in the world. Admittedly, I find my own soul energized by the negativity: encouraged by the negativity of those who share my views; righteously inflamed by those with whom I disagree. Further, when colleagues lament about work “issues,” I’m all too eager to jump on the complain train. And while some of the issues are legitimate and troubling, I’m too eager to stew in them…and pass them on to others. Plus, like so many people in this country, especially as a 60+ single, childless woman fearing the future as an aging American in today’s economic climate, I let my fear depress and paralyze me.

Despite occasional efforts to see the cup half full in the midst of my daily obligations and difficulties, I naturally tilt toward the half-empty perspective. I wallow on all that’s wrong w/ me or my life, all that’s rotten or missing, swimming face first in a pool of “stinkin’ thinkin.’”

I’m also a Christian, but the state of the world plus my own stinkin’ thinkin,’ have wreaked havoc on my faith, on my belief that there’s an eternally big God who’s simultaneously involved personally in each of our lives. It’s hard to see ANY evidence of the active presence of a loving, powerful God: either in the world, or in the people who say they know him. I don’t expect God to solve my problems and woes for me, but some light, an occasional nudge in the right direction, would be helpful. Yet it seems all my prayers are met w/ silence. The cup not only appears half empty, it’s bone dry. Which leads me to today.

Just getting over a bad, energy-draining cold, I began today cranky, coughy, and touchy; the smallest irritant set me off. Cleaning litter boxes, overwhelmed by relentless cat dander, wiping up one too many hairballs and feeling utterly alone, lost, and purposeless in the world, with litter scoop in hand, I prayed. From the depths of my soul erupted my common prayer these days: “H E L P, damnit! PLEASE…HELP. I have NO where else to turn.”

I sat there awhile—expecting the usual response from the God who tenaciously never lets go of me, but who also seems to never stand in the breach for me…silence. However, when I sat up, facing me at my desk were the words of Soren Kierkegaard: Our lives always express the results of our dominant thoughts. No magic: I had posted those words there years ago, but I never saw them anymore they’d been there so long.

I saw ‘em this morning. MY life always expresses the results of my dominant thoughts. My life always expresses the results of my dominant thoughts. What I focus on, I become. Always. I knew the words were God’s response. The idea behind the words obviously wasn’t new to me; the timing of my re-seeing the words was impeccable.

It’s so easy to get weighed down in our daily lives as individuals by very real concerns, threats, demands pulling us in multiple directions, pressure upon pressure until this toxic web becomes all we see…our dominant focus…and our lives and well-being pay the price. Especially if you’re a person like myself who tends to take herself too seriously…at least the parts of herself she doesn’t like, as if those parts are the full essence of who she is.

Later today, in my crankiness, I made a snide comment on a friend’s Facebook posting, to which one of her other FB friends took some offense. When I read his counter-snide comment, along w/ my friend’s defense of my comment (only feeling remotely guilty that I’d put her in that position), I was ready for a word war. Clearly I hadn’t yet entirely embraced the answer to my prayer, b/c my thinking was still flowing in the wrong direction. I tried 3 times to post a reaction, wavering between passive-aggressive and outright nasty retorts. Somehow, thankfully, I was able to pull myself away from submitting any post. My first post was unkind and self-righteously judgmental enough and quite unnecessary; the second one would’ve been just ugly, by design.

How can I live in peace if I’m overwhelmed by the heaviness I make of my daily life? If peace doesn’t dwell within me as a main ingredient in my “dominant thoughts,” how can I channel any peace to those around me, to my community, to the world?

The ONLY person on this planet over whom I have ANY control is myself. And I can have NO positive, healing, restorative, peace-building influence on anyone if I am overcome by the inner turmoil and darkness of my own dominant thoughts. As long as I have cats, the hairballs, cat dander, and chaos will continue. As long as I live in a society and work in a statewide institution, there’ll be people, policies, practices with whom/which I disagree, or that require challenge or change. As long as I interact—online, in print, or face-to-face—with real, fabulous, flawed human beings, I’ll get my feathers ruffled. Only together can we transform our world. But only I can bring peace within my own soul—and thoughts…well, I with the occasional subtle nudges from God.