On the recent violence in Boulder

My heart is tender and I know I am not alone in that. For those of us in Boulder, we have just been witness to a senseless act of violence that has deeply shaken our community (Context). I have found myself deeply saddened, angry and disgusted. Acts such as this do no good for any of us. Even for those of us who can empathize with the frustration that could lead to such an act, there can be no justification for violence such as this, which does nothing other than set us all back. The only glimmer of light I can ever find in an act such as this is in the possibility that it might disturb us enough to see clearly and cease this senseless violence. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, as acts like this tend to only widen the ever-growing gap between us, as we continue to create further division.

While we may be able to find some unity in condemning this senseless act of violence, I think to truly come together around this must also involve recognizing what it is that we can learn from this. I have been thinking a lot about participation and about violence. What does it mean to be a part of a society that is built on violence? What does it mean to be part of so many communities that are actively perpetrating violence? And how are we ourselves violent in our daily living? And is there a way of recognizing and acknowledging this violence that we participate in, both individually and socially, that might somehow transform our relationship to the violence and perhaps lead in some way to a less violent world?

For as long as we have been walking on this earth we have been violent. In order to sustain our own existence, we have had to harm and even kill other beings, both human and non-human beings. This pattern lives so deeply in us that in many ways it has become who we are, to the point where we live in a society where it seems second nature to harm each other. And yet still, when harm at this level happens, we are shocked; we don't want to believe that we humans would cause so much harm to each other. And so what do we do? We put the violence outside of ourselves. We see other people as violent and other communities as violent, but not us, not our communities. Or if we are violent, it is justified, because of the violence of the other. We have been thinking this way for millenia on this earth, and I don't think it's really working out that well for us...

The only way I currently know how to meet such a disturbing event as this is to recognize myself in it, and to feel the deep grief that comes in that. To recognize that through my own actions, and particularly through my participation and my non-participation in so many communities here, I have contributed to violence. It is a bitter pill to swallow, to recognize the ways that I too am complicit in these horrendous acts, and yet I don't know of any way to move forward other than to recognize that. To continue to point the finger at the other, to make an enemy and to create more division, seems to only drive us further apart. Yes, we must continue to critique and to speak to the injustices we see in the world, but I don't know that we can truly do so as long as we relate to that which we are critiquing as something other than us, using the evil in the world to validate our own goodness.

The hope I feel that we can come through this and recognize our shared togetherness is deeply mixed with a great fear that we won't, that we will continue to fight with each other and slowly kill ourselves off this great earth that is our home. And there is deep grief for me in this. I pray that we can stop this senseless violence and begin to remember that whether we are in the middle east, in boulder, or anywhere in the world, we don't need to like our neighbors in order to love them.

I will close this with two quotes that have felt particularly salient for me recently.

Hate cannot drive out hate, only love does that - MLK Jr

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? - Jesus