The Value of Life

The last couple of days, I have been thinking about the way we as humans place value on a life, and view tragedies.  In light of yesterday's events, it is not a popular time to approach the subject, and I am not discounting that the Boston Marathon bombing was a horrible crime, or saying that our hearts and prayers should not go out to the victims.  At the same time, I can't help to realize that the only time we seem to truly be concerned about an event like this is when it hits close to home, and we envision that it could have been ourselves or a loved one affected.  This isn't an incident in some faraway country that barely makes an impression when we see it in the news: this is the USA, and we aren't used to living with events like this, despite the multiple mass shootings of the past few years. Boston is an American city; a setting, culture, and language that is our own; we understand the politics, we know the cars being driven, stores, street layouts, religious views, foods eaten, and types of businesses that operate there.  The people of Boston look like us, and have similar interests, hobbies, careers, and worldviews.  It could have just as easily been another American city, perhaps the one in which we live, which also raises the fear level.  To drive those emotions even higher, local news stations, wanting a piece of the media frenzy, broadcast interviews with witnesses native to our own geographical location, and discuss security of the local events which attract crowds.

What we don't understand is the atmosphere of a place like, and I will use as an example, Baghdad.  I know when I hear about a bombing there, I don't have a context to envision the scene on the street; what the buildings look like, or even what food the Iraqis eat, their religious traditions, what the people are wearing, what the heck is going on with their politics, the language they are speaking, or how they were going about their day before the blast.  I have vague images from the few, brief news broadcasts that even bother to address these events since the US pullout.  Yesterday 62 people were killed in Iraq in a series of bombings and gunfire; something I personally did not see broadcasted by any media outlets. With our intense nationalism and patriotism, there is a sense that it is o.k. if it happens out there but it damn well better never happen here.  Those kind of threats should never darken our lives.  We should feel safe, and secure in large crowds, in tall buildings, on an airplane, on a bus, or riding a subway.  The people in Boston are Americans: we stand by our own and protect and cherish our citizens and our country first and foremost.

Wanting that safety is not actually a bad thing, and I am not making a case for not being prudent and doing everything possible to protect the people within the jurisdiction of the United States.  Nor am I delusional, thinking that nationalism is just an American sentiment. I doubt people in other countries feel much differently, (although it is generally accepted around the world that for all of the education and resources available, Americans are often arrogant and convinced of their cultural and moral superiority, and closed off to and ignorant of other cultures).  In addition to it being natural to love one's country, the world is a big place, and no one can be expected to absorb all of the evil and injustice that occurs every day, and feel intensely emotional about each event.  In fact, emotions happen automatically, and those emotions are bound to be stronger when what you hold near and dear is involved, similarly to the difference between hearing about a serious car accident, and finding out a family member was in that accident.

So what exactly am I getting at? I am not actually trying to make "a point," but simply processing the events of the last couple of days. I do have to say that on a personal level, as a Christian where there are not supposed to be any racial/national barriers, I am not comfortable with, and can't justify defending, or loving, or caring about the people similar to me more than those I can't identify as closely with.  That kind of thinking can result in the unofficial segregation of whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc.even within our own borders. It may be a natural part of human nature to find your identity within a group where the "members" can relate more to and understand and sympathize better with one another based on similar values and experiences, but I can't feel at peace when I see 149 Pakistanis killed in bombings in February (which if I knew about, I already forgot) and dismiss it and move on with my day, but watch hours of TV coverage when three American people die, and feel shock and horror.  At the risk of my words being interpreted as a minimization of the events in Boston, I want to be clear that I am not in any way downplaying what happened.  But the Good Samaritan was the example Jesus held up when he said "Love your neighbor as yourself," and the Samaritans were the Jew's enemies.  

I know I don't naturally love the world around me like that. When I am being honest and not falsely praising myself for being open-minded, I  have a hard time seeing beyond geographical, religious, racial, and cultural differences. I realize how easily I can start to classify people, or see a "Them," and either be indifferent, or feel threatened by the unfamiliarity and differences with whatever group, and cling to the comfort of not stepping outside of what I understand and know.  That mentality is something I have written against before, since I have experienced what it is like to be one of Them, and Other while struggling with mental illness, but it's much easier to point out in other people than it is to be transparent about that tendency in yourself.    

I want to remember that the child killed in Iraq by a car bomb yesterday was just as precious and irreplaceable as the eight-year-old boy killed in Boston.  I want to feel the same compassion for one of the Afghan allies who lost a limb that I feel for a returning American soldier in the same situation.  I want to be more passionate about the movement to end human trafficking, of which I am currently a small part of, than I will ever be about something like debating gun control laws, because if Americans were being pressed into forced labor and sex trafficking at the rate people in other countries are, the whole gun control debate would pale in comparison.  My home is in Heaven, not here, and people from every tribe, tongue and nation are going to be there, so I ought to get to know and appreciate them here on earth when given the opportunity.  I also know that I can't do any of that on my own, and the way to grow love is not by digging down really deeply into myself, or working a lot harder to produce it.  Generally I find the deeper I dig, the more ugly stuff comes up to the surface, not the opposite. Jesus already came and gave himself for the whole world, sending his disciples out into "all the nations."  If that's where his heart is, I am confident that he is willing and able to make mine reflect that.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Monday 15 April: 62 killed

Baghdad: 30 by car bombs, IEDs.
Tuz Khurmato: 7 by car bombs.
Mussayab: 4 by car bombs.
Tikrit: 4 by car bombs.
Nassiriya: 2 by car bombs.
Mosul: 2 by car bomb, gunfire.
Ramadi: 3 by car bomb, gunfire.
Khalis: 1 child by car bomb.
Shirqat: 1 by gunfire.
Falluja: 2 by car bomb.
Kirkuk: 4 by car bombs.
Tarmiya: 1 policeman by gunfire.
Buhriz: 1 by car bomb.
April casualties so far: 249 civilians killed.

The Ugly Truth

I spent most of my return time to this blog unsuccessfully attempting to figure out how to link it with my other blog.  I also sat and thought about whether I was too honest in some of my postings, and might want to retreat a little from sharing things in my life that I can't boast about, and that don't necessarily paint me in the most positive light.  There are a couple of things I have blogged about, and a lot more things I haven't (since I am sporadic about it at best) that I wish I could make disappear so that I would feel more admirable, more appealing, more "normal."  Being open is difficult, and not something I do well unless it is with my closest friends, or when I have no choice because I am unable to hide my shortcomings.  I did use to say a lot of things about how I would not allow people to make me feel ashamed or silence me from telling the truth, and that I refused to try to paint over the bad things in life. My childhood was filled with ignoring reality and trying to pretend that things were neat, orderly, and correct, instead of chaotic, painful, and filled with fear.  I never wanted to return to that, and so I vowed to do the exact opposite in my adult life.

But the truth is, I want to be liked and accepted.  I want people to think well of me.  If things aren't the way I want them to be, and I am not the person I want to be, than I tend to redouble my efforts to make things look good, as if by changing the presentation I can alter reality.  It's not that I never was forthright, but again, it was to select people and in situations that felt safe.  To put it mildly, all of that tends to fall apart when your marriage collapses, you lose jobs, and you have a mental and emotional breakdown.  Any self-confidence turns to shame.  It may be that your marriage was struggling from the beginning.  It may be that while talking about being a Christian you felt condemned instead of free because you thought it was up to you and all you did was fail to live up to the standards.  It may be that you suppressed the depression and despair for years, but lets face it; no one really cares about all of that as long as you can keep (pardon my language) your shit together.  When all of that garbage is out on the table, it isn't really something anyone cares to see, but when you spend weeks at a time in the hospital, and your marriage ends, there is really no hiding.  Not only do you expose yourself simply by "falling apart," but you also feel like you have an obligation to explain to everyone and their brother what your personal issues are, as if you need to apologize endlessly for your failures, and justify your existence and misery somehow when you don't even feel that it's justified.  You are the object of pity, worry, and often understandable anger and confusion, and your family, loved ones, and even strangers think that if you do something as crazy and stupid as trying to take your own life, than your privacy is forfeit.  Your every thought and motivation is up for examination and demands are placed that they must be revealed.  There is no longer a decision about the self that you want to put out there, and people are left to draw their own conclusions, which are largely influenced by things like whether or not they believe in such a thing as mental illness, whether they think you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, whether they factor in spiritual influences or past trauma, and whether they decide to stand by you or to walk away.

After all of that it would make sense to retreat and begin working on rebuilding my self image.  It would make sense to try to get a really great job or return to college and achieve high marks, and take on social causes and try to be a really good person to earn respect again.  Every month, every year that passes would be one I could check off against what sees like, and partly may be, a really incredibly enormous series of mistakes, mental illness, misinformation, lack of understanding, deep depression, and bad decisions.  The hope would be that it some point I would have worked hard enough and distanced myself enough from this chapter of my life that I could sweep it under the rug and maybe vaguely refer to it as "a difficult time."

A big part of me wants to do that, and it might seem like the best path to some people.  So why wouldn't I?  Back to the beginning of this blog, when I said I am tempted to erase the blogs that reveal embarrassing or personal things that make me and others uncomfortable.  I won't do that either, because this is my story, and I can't rewrite it to make it conform to what society approves of, or what I would have wanted.  I hope healing and redemption and new life can come out of it, but whatever the result, it will be influenced by this time in my life.  I don't like it, I would not have chosen it, and I do worry about what people will think of me as a result of it, but ultimately my flaws don't define me.  What God thinks about and says about me does, and He sees the mess I am, and doesn't say like so many other people, "Go clean your act up and then we'll talk," but "I see the mess you are and that is why I sent my Son.  Come just the way you are."  That's the truth I often don't believe the way I should, but that also sets me free from going back into hiding.