Footprints in the Windsm # 1029–Could there be a third way?
Footprints in the Windsm # 1029
“Everything terrifying is, in its deepest being, something helpless that wants our help.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
I wonder how that applies to our current hand wringing over “Terrorism.” Adding the “ism” to it gives it a dignity and personification it has not earned. It is in fact the actions of people who are no more than hoodlums, international criminals. It is not a way of life, not a belief system such as Lutheranism or Buddhism—or even atheism. It is actually helplessness and despair on one end of the scale or psychoses and pathological criminality on the other.
The use of religious framing and fundamentalism is actually a hiding place for those who have diseases and issues on this continuum. Other voices from these same religions condemn the sickened use of their faith and scriptures for such ungodly ends.
So how do we “help” the person who is suffering from such a disease? Perhaps fighting back does not solve the underlying problem of the person who is frustrated from lack of food or work or the ability to be heard. Perhaps bombing the psychotic does not calm him or her.
Could hearing help? Could earnestly seeking a way to address perceived and actual wrongs? Would it be more costly in lives and body parts and governmental expenditures and the taxes they necessitate? Could providing food and medical help and jobs help tone down the voices that are inflaming the mentally ill? Could gathering and making friends in turn gather police and medical people to find and treat the psychotics and thus reduce the risk to our world’s peoples?
What is the pay off criminals get from spreading terror? Could imagination be employed to seek a way to reduce that pay off? Beyond what we are doing now—using brute force—and letting ourselves be victims, could there a third way?
Please pass it on.
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