Violence and Soul

Is it any wonder why we cry when we come into this world? Out from the safety of a blameless existence, from the inner sanctum of purity, we are yanked by hands or forceps to an existence that moves steadily to answerability. From spotlessness to sin, that’s our mapquest, a migration of a lesser developed brain but superior spirituality to higher intelligence and character flaws from within and without. We exchange the sounds of our mothers’ heartbeats for the misdirections and stunts of the world and its minions who always want something from you and will take it by force if need be.

When we’re finally old enough to be consumers of the media, baptized by men who tell us things, we learn fast that there’s no shortage of conflict in our world. With spears, stones, missiles, and prose, the sons and daughters of Adam aim their vengeance at one another without discretion, if such a concept even applies. The words and dramas are familiar enough, a veritable slaughter of language to celebrate human violence. So what is it? Aggression or defense? Heroes or villains? Security or terrorism? Love or hate? God or ego? Suicide or martyrdom? Fences or land grab again? The beat goes on. The cacophony of phraseology and the resultant cleaving of human flesh has another damnable mutilation, namely the ultimate distraction, anything to keep us from realizing the other conflict, the drama that we are born with, the battle between our two natures: the clay of our bodies and the spirit breathed into us all that clearly is not of this world. It is in this battleground, this tumultuous Gettysburg or Badr, where the problems of our external world are imbibed and sponsored.

We want answers, and talking heads, the experts of course, give them. And we still don’t know where to begin. A world leader thinks the answer is in a lasso, just round them up and kill them. And a man in a cave and his sycophants believe that chaos produces order, murder yields justice, hatred paves the road to peace, and shrapnel generates civilization; they have certainty that God guides the bomb-makers. People see the caveman and think of Islam and a noble Prophet. That’s a tragedy too.