Warning:long rambling about crap we already know but ignore.

If you live in a city of any significant population, news of horrible crimes
bombard you daily. In fact with today's 24 hour new cycle and internet access virtually
everywhere, horrific crimes are streamed to us hourly. There must be some recipe
that national news corporations use in order to pluck one story out of the millions.
The ingredients are often similar: Sex? Race? Celebrity? Normally unfathomable horror?

In high crime cities, the natives are often seemingly bitter, callous, judgmental, or perhaps indifferent when crime stories capture the nation. After all, why didn't a similar local story make those headlines?

I've been going over and over what makes this nation jump. What makes them call to arms.
Injustice? Yes.
Polarizing issues? Yes.
Loss of life? NOPE.

We see loss of life e v e r y day. Every single day people are murdered in horrific ways,
all over this country, all over this world.

And yet, we can flip through those stories as if they were commercials. We can block them out and focus instead on anything else. Anything. From celebrity's kids' nicknames to presidential follies to what food is bad for us this week to what miracle science has discovered to what evil science is promoting.

So it seems to me that even though a man named Zimmerman pulled a trigger and killed a boy, we are all to blame. He was deemed "not guilty" and yet I think we all are. Every individual in this country shapes the world around them. We fight for women's rights while ignoring the purpose of sex. We get angry over wars yet fault our leaders for not helping those we deem need our help. We spit at the media for being puppets of lobbyists, but continue to pay absurd amounts for hundreds of channels. We fault the intolerant, while not tolerating hem in the
exact
same
breath.

A six year old was found dead in a dumpster today in my home town. That sentence should be unfathomable. It should make you want to call your neighbor and gather friends and hold town meetings in order to make sure it never happens again.

I'm guilty- because although it brings tears to my eyes, that's all it does. Instead, we get enraged. We broadcast horrible thoughts of what we would do to the monster that caused this. We get in fights with people we don't even know, with people who have nothing to do with the crime, over why this happened, and who is to blame. And a little girl is still dead. And another will die tomorrow. Another similar story will emerge, and another, and another. Eventually one will be picked to be the shiny new prize of a national media outlet. And we'll get mad. We'll think the crime is an outrage. That it's unfathomable.

And we'll do nothing about it.

Because we live in a time where it's hard to be tolerant. To be kind. To be forgiving. To be compassionate.
Or at least we think it is. Because perspective is hard to come by.

So let me lay it out for you: There is always someone worse off than you, and if you don't help them, you really can't expect for someone else to help you. So perhaps being kind is in our best interest? Is it naive to think that way? Is it insane to confront someone with who in your mind, deserves to die, with instead, forgiveness?

Surely to the family of a loved one who has been taken from them this is not realistic. They want justice. Want closure. And I wouldn't want to deny them that. But hate is not part of justice. Hate is part of murder. We are all to blame. And so only we can fix it. Not our government, not our laws, not our media.

Drown out the hate with compassion. With forgiveness. And when you have mastered that, drown it out with kindness. Especially when kids are watching. Even when you don't want to. And if it's too hard to start with the murderers, start simply with people who don't comply with your ideals. This is what you can do to change the world. This is what I strive to do. I can't tell if it's working yet, but I don't think enough people are trying. And I desperately want them to because I have very bad days. Very bad, ugly days when the ease of hate wins. And during those days, I'll need someone to forgive me. And on my good days, I'll try to do more than just read the headlines.

Naively yours,

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