The Forgotten Offensiveness

You know what increasingly angers me? People who post disturbing images on social media. I find it funny that we're so worried about “offending” people with our opinions, but that we have no concern whatever about offending their sensibilities.

I just saw a picture (calling for the old like=prayer thing) of a small, naked child lying in its own blood as a result of some problem he or she has – it looked like a hideous skin condition, his skin thick and red as a hard candy.  It actually made me a little nauseous, just at a glance, and I had to scroll away from it.

At other times, people have posted articles about medical marvels and issues, accompanied by pictures of innards and organs laid bare in a stainless steel tray.

What’s the problem? Does no one get disgusted by graphic gore anymore? Or is it that people need to be shocked in order to care? Maybe it is a combination of both, but whatever it is, it seems to me to amount to a decline in the ascent of man to a higher form. We should be able to care about the stench of human suffering without having to have our noses shoved in it. We should be interested in the wonders of modern science, conceptually, without having to be elbow deep in dissection gore. (Thank goodness some people are able to be elbow-deep in dissection gore, or we would have no advances – but that is not the average person.)

Every night, I offer a prayer for the suffering, especially children. Seeing a scene of the graphic suffering of a child is not going to change me, except to disturb me. It might motivate me to weep, but nothing changes: I still care about children and I still want to help, whether with prayer or charity.
 

You know what? It is okay for us to avoid discomfort in the face of suffering, so long as we are doing the right things to alleviate that suffering. I don’t need someone, either purposefully or in total disregard for my sensibilities, to determine what I should be tricked into seeing. 

And, so, the waters of the social media age flood in, through the cracks in the fortress of privacy.

If Prayer Is Silly, So Are "Positive Thoughts"

Every so so often, someone I know will post, on Facebook, about something that's happening in his or her life; something bad -- or something that could wind up badly. Usually, a ton of friends will respond. Some will say: "I'll say a prayer for you." Others will offer "positive thoughts." Either way, the gesture is well-taken: they want things to turn out well for their friend.

But, it does strike me as a little funny. People who do not believe in the Divine still feel the need to do something "supernatural" for a suffering friend. They "send positive thoughts."

Out of the people who do this, some truly believe in the power. I have heard numerous atheists defend "the power of positive thought." I don't know about you, but I have never seen a stitch of empirical proof that positive thought does anything to help matters. Still, some who think it is foolish to believe in prayer think it makes perfect sense to believe in the power of thinking as some kind of positive incantation.

Inconsistent? Uh, yeah.

The other half of the people who do this are to be commended: they do not believe in either the power of prayer or the power of positive thought, but they want to offer something to help combat a problem they have no ability to alter (in their own opinions).  "Sending positive thoughts your way..." they write.

When the Crowd Closes In

I sing the praise of the long-distance runner who takes to the road in the damp morning darkness and sinks into the rhythm of her feet hitting the pavement and who floats through the wondrous maze of her thoughts in a runner's high, exploring who she is and how strong she can become. So long as she is preparing for a race she doesn't care about winning.

I sing the praise of the boy sitting in his silent room at night on a Saturday, painting tiny pewter figures and watching old Sherlock Holmes films as the fog curls around his house. So long as he is going to meet his friends for a role-playing adventure during the week and put those painted pieces to use.

I sing the praise of the teenaged girl staying home from the mall on a weekend afternoon, no make up, hair in a ponytail, pencil hissing over the pages and filling the book in her lap with sketches. So long as she will share her vision with the world on a day to come.

I sing the praise of the songwriter at the piano, surrounded by papers and working out the fine elements of a chord progression by himself, hours on end, whisper-singing, lightly playing late at night so as not to awaken his wife. So long as he has the guts to sing his songs out loud to the crowd -- when the time comes.

I sing the praise of the prayerful old woman who has been prayerful since her days of staggering beauty and robust health, praying alone in her outdated kitchen over a steaming cup of coffee. So long as she goes to worship to worship, and not to be lauded for the way she covers her face while she prays or for how loudly she sings.

I praise the thinkers, the believers and the makers and those who treasure silence and solitude and improvement. So long as they stay in the mix, on their own terms. So long as they realize that "community" can be nonsense, but doesn't have to be. So long as they think of themselves first and the world second, but with deep concern. As it must be.

I praise all of the people I hope I can be when the time comes; when the crowd closes in.