Yet another gun abuse

No-one wants to criticise people in a different place, but we are all saddened and upset when we hear more innocent people killed by disturbed people with guns. I'm sure Americans wish they had an answer. I wish I did.

The easy part of the answer is their easy access to guns - but that is not the main part of the problem. Guns do not fire themselves.

Too many people in America - in New Zealand - and in the world, lack either the empathy to feel for the innocent victims in cinemas, schools, sitting in their homes, shopping at the market - or lack an understanding of who they are hurting and killing. Or both.

People in America and Syria and the Horn of Africa and Palestine and in our own country - and in so many other communities in so many parts of the world - still allow ourselves to see people as objects rather than people, as inferior and of no value, as enemies. Innocent people are killed. Children abused or murdered.

It is a clear sign that humanity has still to grow up, to understand the extension of the golden rule: what we do to another, we do to ourselves. Our religions have always known that. Jesus told us about the Way, the Truth, and the Life - and that we reap what we sow. We all talk about karma.

Around the time of Isaiah about 2600 years ago a mystic in China wrote in the Tao Te Ching

When a country is in harmony with the Tao (the Way),
the factories make trucks and tractors.
When a country goes counter to the Tao (Way),
warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.

(He actually wrote about farm horses becoming warhorses - but you get the point!)

I'm a bit of a science fiction fan and last week I bought Andy Weir's The Martian to read before I go to see Sir Ridley Scott's film. I bought the book - and at the same time as an impulse buy I bought Andy Weir's short story The Egg as an Audible file for $2 (to let my phone read it to me). It's only 10 minutes - but it is a brilliant story about how we relate to other people. I won't spoil it in case you want to read it (great buy for $2!) - but it does present an original take on our role in the universe and our connection to everyone else.

Jesus and Paul brought the same concept to Christianity. It is a theme in many other religions. I am convinced that this is who we are! People who use guns against people (or bombs or fists or even just lack kindness) clearly do not believe this.

The world needs a better compass - we do not have a clear or rational sense of direction. Too many people are adrift, not seeing their connections with others; not looking for goodness or virtue; living without any clear understanding of who they are or where they are going. They seem to have no idea of the purpose of their lives.

The irony is that in many of the world's trouble-spots people in power also claim to have a superior understanding of the Way. They clearly don't: their actions demonstrate that their prejudices, egos, self-centeredness, and personal ambition have dominated any relationship their God has tried to offer them. They try to use God to further personal ambitions.

What can we do? Practically, not enough - other than to add our voice when we can, and support the victims. 

But if we believe that the spirit endures and is the better, stronger part of us - then we must add our spirit to the growth and flowering of humanity. Pray. Read. Meditate. Love. Forgive.

Sounds ineffectual? But imagine if we all did it. Even in human terms we would have such influence. But when enough of us open ourselves to God, to peace, and to love, we will transform humanity!