Can we auto-correct humanity?

A favorite poem of mine.  Gets right to the heart of our mixed up priorities, as I see it.  I've been accused of being anti-technology...to which I reply, no....I am not anti-technology; just anti- obsessing-over-technology.

If you agree, look me up at The Naoi Meadow Way (my personal way of connecting with Jesus).

Let's purge "gun" and "mental" from the dialog

We are wasting too much time bickering around the margins.  Neither gun control nor mental health screening will ever solve anything as long as we live in a country where the mentality is to worship guns.  The reasonable view should be that a gun is nothing more than a tool, like a hammer or a toothbrush; handy when you need it, but staying tucked away in the toolbox or drawer until then. No one I know builds their whole lifestyle around collecting bigger hammers and meaner toothbrushes, hangs them all over their walls, or carries them around in the pockets of their camos, cargo shorts and hoodies in order to make a social statement.  If examining mental issues is what is warranted, then the the mental issue that we should start with might be the psychology of our society at-large..

We live in a nation that was founded by angry, anti-government rebels.  We fought a civil war instigated by angry, anti-government rebels.  So our fundamental culture in the United States has always been one of violence, not peace.  We don't look to Gandis and Dalai Lamas as our leaders; we go with Cheneys and Trumps. And, as long as we continue to wave the banner of anger and teach our children to distrust and rebel, any effort to limit gun sales to the gentle and passive of spirit will always be an exercise in hopeless futility.

So I suggest that we stop using the politically poisonous words "gun", "mental" and "screening" altogether, and shift the discussion instead toward the prospect, however unlikely, of reforming our culture from the medieval mindset of anger and violence to one of peace and understanding.  It should be possible.  After all, that is exactly what Jesus did vis-à-vis his own culture.  Not many went along, but those who did transformed the next two thousand years.  And you and I and our civilization came out of that very reform movement.

We don't seem very Jesus-like today, however.  So what happened to us?  

Our dilemma called 'Virtual Overcrowding'

Why is there so much violence and corruption going on today?  Why is everyone so obsessed with themselves? Why do people, especially younger people, have so little regard for life, for things that are natural or historical, or for the concerns of others?  You may have heard me say before that I am afraid that the glory of our human civilization has peaked, today's technology revolution is simply the final chapter of the waning Renaissance, and we may well have begun the downward spiral toward another Dark Age. I don't know what we can really do about it, except try to understand it.

The dilemma is very, very complicated--a combination of problems, as I see it.  So, let's look at problem number one and save the others for another day. This is the one I call 'Virtual Overcrowding'--a weird sort of population explosion brought on by the way technology puts us micrometers away from virtually everyone else on Earth. If you are a social media obsessive, you probably think this is a good thing, right?  However, it's always been true that the more people we come in contact with each day, whether directly or indirectly, the more chances there are for conflict...and the more need there is for regulation, laws, and, yes, political correctness (i.e using discretion and practiced dishonesty).

Back in the old days, we might have come in contact with maybe a couple dozen people a day---family, friends, coworkers, etc. But today, thanks to technology, we come in contact with thousands (Think of every face, or image of a face, you see on TV, the internet, social media, in public places, driving down the street, etc.). You are not aware of it, but these are people you are in contact with and affected by. And when you are in constant contact with such a huge number of people virtually every minute of every day, and are expected to be politically correct to every one of them, it eventually warps the whole way you interact with people and the society around you. It can mess your mind up. You start to become antsy and irritable, and things resembling depression, ADHD and PTS begin to seep into your personality.

Scientists have known this for years.  I remember learning it back in biology class; that when so many of a species---mice, monkeys, ants, or whatever--are crammed in a cage together causing severe overcrowding, they start doing wierd things: rape, deceit, violence, sexual perversion, stealing, substance abuse, etc. In other words, their society breaks down.  Could that be what is happening to us?

My theory is that we are suffering the consequences of over-population--not actual numbers of people, but 'virtual overcrowding'.  Hence the mass murders, terrorist activities, and disregard for institutions like religion and family. Our society is crumbling under its own weight.  And it is especially bad for young kids whose developing minds are also having to cope with other powerful forces:  peer pressure, for instance, and negative influences coming at them from all directions, including the dark worlds of entertainment and marketing.

So there you have it.  One of several  possible problems worth pondering. The others we can go into someday. But the question facing us now is this:  Is there anything we can do about it? I don't know, but I have a sense that we basically have just two choices: either resolve to change our culture by adding more moral and ethical parameters...or opt to leave it altogether and go live in a small insular community (like my proposal, the Naoi Meadow Way) where we and people like us get to call the shots and do things our way.   Personally, I am rapidly losing confidence in the first option.     

Pope Francis sure reminds me of Jesus

I am not Catholic, but I do consider myself a co-traveler with them. And I have been watching this week's Papal visit with a lot of interest. As I have said on my FB timeline, I admire what Pope Francis is trying to get across to us all, and I agree with just about everything he has said while in our country. So I won't dwell anymore on that. But let me add something else: What I find most awesome about this particular pontiff is his Jesus-like manner and qualities.

As I watched him today visiting the students at a parochial school in an impoverished area of East Harlem, it brought a tear to my eye. This could have been Jesus Himself ("Suffer little children to come unto me"), I thought to myself. It was an indescribable scene.  To witness the smiles and hugs and heartfelt words, in English and Spanish, that he shared with these wide-eyed kids as they eagerly showed him their classrooms and the special projects they had obviously worked on for months to get ready for this once-in-a-lifetime experience was blessed beyond words.

And these children we are told are nearly all immigrants (60% Hispanic, 20% African-American), most from impoverished or broken homes, and some even without parents at all, having migrated here by themselves in last year's wave of refugees from Latin American.

Those who know Pope Francis say he is rather like a parish priest who just incidentally happens to also be Pope...and he was completely in his element in that school. He loves that kind of thing, being hand-in-hand with regular townspeople, especially the least amongst us, and especially the children, and would have stayed with those kids all day if he could have. And I do believe it.

As I watched the innocent laughter in the eyes of those children, I think I was seeing for the first time the real face of the world's migrants, refugees and immigrants up close. And as I looked into the face of the Pope, I think I almost saw Jesus. Certainly, I cannot recall ever before seeing a Christian who came so close to being what I always pictured the savior to have been like.

My prayer is that others besides just myself watched this event, saw a bit of Jesus in that classroom as well, and came away as I did with a new perspective on the world and what we need to do to make it better for all who live in it.

Tolerance by all needs to be the result of Religious Freedom laws

The so-called "religious freedom" laws being debated in Indiana and Arkansas clearly illustrate the war of wills which, although age-old, does seem to be ramping up of late between older, close-minded conservatives and younger, close-minded progressives. Face it, few amongst us still live in tiny, insular communities of like-minded folks, and no one else. Today's society puts almost everyone in potential contact with almost everyone else. So, to peacefully coexist elbow to elbow with one another, everyone has to bend a little and learn to think of others.  The laws, in fact, should force them to do so, whether they like it or not.  Tolerance is the price of freedom and rights.

Conservatives (unless they want to move to a remote cabin in the backwoods) need to do their part by admitting that they will always have to share their space with people who do things they find offensive. And, by choosing to be members of society, they have a responsibility to put up with those annoyances, try to ignore them, and move on.

Progressives (unless they want to move to a remote, self-reliant commune somewhere) need to do their part by admitting that, while they may inherit the earth someday, they haven't yet.  They don't own the public square---and, with their right to be non-traditionalist or eccentric, comes the responsibility to avoid offending people around them whose values may be more traditional and less politically correct than theirs.

These religious freedom laws are tricky. They must be very carefully worded in such a way that both sides are forced to compromise and become more tolerant. Or else they will never work.

Breaking News! Texas is out of execution juice!

OMG! It's Armageddon at the Alamo! And just when all those illegals are pouring over the hill like leafcutter ants to a Willie Nelson picnic! Our officials are in a state of panic to be sure. Ted Cruz has been on the phone with the White House, begging Obama for federal aid--and has even hinted he will try to avoid shutting the place down until at least the end of the week.  Meanwhile, Gov. Abbott is bringing Ted Nugent back in to head up an interim firing squad system--just in case we fall behind schedule--and has been on the phone all day with Utah, trying to determine if readily-available pearl-handled six-shooters will get it done, or if a gatling gun would be better.  How will we survive this crisis?

Same-sex leaning: By birth for some, by choice for others

Would-be Presidential candidate Ben Carson keeps proving over and over that he is not ready for prime time.  You may have heard his opinion this week that being gay is "absolutely" a matter of choice---as evidenced, he says, by the homosexuality displayed in prisons by inmates.  Is he looney? Or is he correct?  Or is he partly looney and partly correct? Okay, here is where I come down on that:

As a never-been-married total layperson on such matters, but a fairly seasoned people-watcher, I believe it would be incorrect to pretend it is a one-size-fits-all proposition.  The gays and lesbians I have known over the years seem to me to fit, more or less, into one of about 3 main categories:  (1) Those who are born with a biological makeup, perhaps genetic or hormonal, that gives them a propensity for same-sex attraction; (2) Those to whom it is a personal preference, like preferring someone older, or younger, or bigger, or skinnier, or lighter, or darker, etc.; and (3) Those hipsters who gear their dating life around what is trendy at the time, especially within their own circle of peers.

Bottom line?  I would surmise that most of the time you are born with it, but sometimes you choose it.  Either way is okay by me. It's none of my business.  That is, until you get into trying to redefine marriage, an institution which human civilization invented a long time ago more as a way to create a stable home situation for having and raising children than to create a nice bond between people who love one another or to provide them with legal rights.

In the olden days, when church and state were inextricably linked, 'marriage' worked for all of the above.  But, now that times have changed, there needs to be an entirely new civil institution just for the 'bonding' and 'legal rights' issues, split off entirely from the largely religious institution of 'marriage'.

To arbitrarily give 'marriage' a broader meaning than it has always had would serve to completely water down the significance of every marriage that has ever taken place.  Suddenly, whatever our grandparents and all those other generations of kinfolk had that was subsequently passed down to us as 'family' would be rendered a whole lot less meaningful.  How can that possibly be right?