I am asking you to make a sacrifice.

Dozens have died by violence in my country since last I began this thread. Mr Sterling and Mr. Castillo were killed just this week. Now, in Dallas, a response. Police officers and civilians shot from a distance during a peaceful demonstration.

Again - I send a message to the Clergy of this Temple.

You know what I am about to ask you. I have had to ask it too many times because the necessity arises with horrifying frequency.

Be the voice for peace today. I feel a terrible grief and a terrible rage, but I will speak for peace, for taking a moment to feel what needs to be felt and to understand as best as one can.

Serve the Temple in empathy and mercy today. Do not attack the rageful, but reach out to them. Support them. And console the grieving. It is a sacrifice, I know. Your feelings are raw as well. When you are in need, seek out each other. Or me. I will listen to anyone who requires it.

Thank you, my friends.

My heart is just so broken right now. Thank you Cabur.

Sometimes a thank you button is not enough. Sometimes I use it as my "hug" button.

J_Roz wrote: My heart is just so broken right now.

I understand. I am sick in my heart, today. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

And thank you, J Roz.

A sniper. It was a damned sniper. And those lives are gone, those innocent lives are gone. How is it that you suppress your anger ?! How is it that you do not scream in a fit of rage whenever you see the news. I'm broken. The world is broken. This is not civilisation. This is chaos. We live in a world of chaos.

Because Silas, I remember that we also live in a world of harmony and beauty. It's not easy, the media makes it even harder, but it's the truth. Remember that the news gives us but a snapshot of all that happens in the world and for some reason they like to focus on the bad. They focus on the chaos and, most of all, they seem to focus on the divisions. But that is not all that there is in the world.

When I look at the stage on a more global level (which means, looking at the frequency that various other countries experience tragedies like this), I'm not surprised or shocked. We could be in a similar state as the middle-east is, which is many times more severe on a daily basis than things are in the states on a yearly basis.
This is not to say I don't feel sad for the victims and their families (and pity for the criminals), but simply, that it doesn't shake me up so much hearing about it like it would if I were so convinced (indoctrinated by the western world country) that we ought to be the only country to not experience this, as if we are. The world keeps on turning turning turning, people will keep dying dying dying, and in the same motion, the love we have always had and will continue to have, will continue growing, growing growing, where it will. Just turn the page, and keeping doing what you do.

Bad things happen. We shouldn't let them drag us down. Focus on goodness and we will always have goodness.

I think one of the things that helps with the heartache (for me, at least) is letting this stuff remind me of how far mankind has actually come (bear with me!). As imperfect as our world obviously still is, since the dawn of recorded history our world has never seen this overall level of peace, prosperity, lack of violence, and freedom from oppression. There absolutely are heart-wrenching atrocities around us, like those of the past few days, but the reason we can feel so surrounded by horrors is because, as a society, we actually recognize them as being horrible. Less than a lifetime ago violence against black people (perpetrated by civilians and cops alike) was certainly much, much more frequent, but much of society (or at the very least the media) didn't exactly care all that much... and the overall trend for violence in general (including against police) has similarly decreased in the grand scheme of things. Back then it just wasn't quite as big a news story, because that was just the status quo. (And the same applies in other aspects -- the percentage of people living in absolute poverty worldwide, for example, has also decreased enormously).

And please don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not saying that we shouldn't have this reaction in the present day, or that we're not allowed to feel devastated by these things just because others have had it worse in the past/elsewhere in the world. To the contrary, we absolutely can and should grieve over tragedies like this. If anything, I'm saying that the fact that we are so devastated by events like these is a good thing -- it shows how unacceptable such actions have become in the eyes of society, and perhaps even how much less commonplace they are if it can stop the whole world in its tracks when it happens.

It hurts so much because we're not desensitized to it. It looks so abhorrent because we're learning. And I think there's some comfort to be found in being mindful of that.

"Where there is despair, hope."

Just my two cents anyway

This is kaliyug. And has been for a while now. Violence creates more violence, hatred creates more hatred. The dark side.