The Joy of Killing: Cease Fire

It broke His heart.. .

As a young person coming of age, physical confrontation was an inevitable rites of passage. I wasn't a fighter per se but there were times when I had to or chose to knuckle up....I met both defeat and victory. 

While the reasons for engagement were often nebulous, they were always fair because neither I nor my occasional adversary concealed any weaponry beyond our own physical and tactical capabilities.

As years passed, I grew weary, even fearful when disputes swirled. Why? The rules of fighting had shifted, fists and knuckling up steadily ceased being chosen tools of engagement. Use of physicality and outsmarting one's opponent quickly gave way to brandishing guns and using trigger fingers. In short cowardice found courage shadowed behind cold steel. The rites of passage marks of busted lips, bruised egos or black eyes gave way to bullet wounds, bloodshed and boxed bodies. 

Conflict, once ending in mutual respect or an unstated understanding is now militarized. Mirroring the militarism of America the greatest superpower - the mediator of choice became war. Handguns and semiautomatic weapons were now negotiators of peace, practicing a deadly diplomacy. 

Looking back, the few instances leading to me knuckling up were reasoned by insecurity, ignorance and an immersed infantility. I'm grateful for surviving those moments...because now countless are numbered and celebrated collateral damage of conflict. 

Has the citizenry become wanton imitators? Mimicking revered armed forces and an anemic legislature who bullies and belittles anyone with whom disagreement arises – declaring war against and death to – while pulling the triggers of registered and unregistered silencers of peace!

Even a cursory glance at the number of people killed by gun violence reveals a national disregard for human life. Murder is our accepted way of life – from the discovery and founding of our Nation to the national celebration of the assassinations of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to law enforcement murdering citizens to the terrorist acts on school and college campuses to homicides to politicians choosing to support the NRA versus passing laws for the safety of its citizens to the glorifying of murder in action movies to the vividly calculated murders on video games, and the joy of killing list goes on and on...

We have become so numb to human beings pulling triggers that release

incendiary powder-filled brass – into tender human, God-created souls –

with the intent to sear, debilitate and kill.

Could it be that cowardice has successfully redefined winning at conflict,

means one must murder?

I remain weary, even fearful when disputes swirl and conflict festers because the rules have changed...

I do not want to continue bearing witness as people die from confrontations most likely born of insecurity, ignorance and an immersed infantility. 

The winning has to cease fire!!!

 “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made humans... It broke His heart.” (Genesis 6:5–6)