Violences

All sort of petty violences add up; the evil done between family members, lovers, strangers: passive-aggressiveness, verbal abuse, physical, sexual, the careless slight and the intentional avoidance.
Every day violence is committed somewhere. Faraway in a place where people are fighting for their lives with guns and a multitude of other weapons, or close to home in the silences that strangle.
Something dies in us when we are afflicted by the violence of others: A sense of security, a comfortableness in the world.

So many types of violence; the overt, the almost intangible but insidious that makes us doubt, neglect, betrayal. "Twenty ways to leave your lover"; how to hurt someone, we are good at it, well practiced. We know just what to do when we want to cut the deepest. But we always have the choice to hold back, to not harm and to find solutions other ways. Not everyone takes that opportunity.

I'm not Jesus, I will not forgive all abuses. I don't think that's what the story really meant when he sacrificed himself. I hope he was trying to instruct us that life often calls for us to sacrifice, but we can make the choice as to how much is too much, and when we need to stand our own ground. I do not believe it makes me a bad person to leave unacceptable acts unforgiven, it's a "truth" I learned to live with.

I refuse to give up my home in the world to people strangled by their own pain, too selfish and afflicted to see anything else. These are legion, unfortunately, and we run into them in many places in our lives.