I have before and will do so again

I have posted on serious subjects before and most likely will again. I try to stick to my "theme" of lighten-up on this blog but since life often fails to go by lightly, happily, gently I occasionally post serious thoughts.

Cultures have celebrations in remembrance of good events. Sometimes these good events came out of bad events. Our Christmas season celebrates joy, peace, goodwill. Certainly if everyone was following along there would be no violence during this season of peace. But we know it doesn't work that way.

We are born innocent. Fortunately most children in first world countries remain innocent for the first few years of their lives. Even in some third world countries many young children don't see violence. I don't know at what age one should learn the world is not always a lovely peaceful place. I think by age 20 one should know. I don't believe a violent threatening world should be experienced by a child. The trauma could lead to a later cycle of violence by the afflicted child. We know violence can spread. Love and kindness also spreads. Love and kindness can be seen in the aid offered to victims after tragedies.

Old news - December 14, 2012- A horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary left 20 children, 6- and 7-year-olds, and six educators gunned down by a troubled 20-year-old.

There are no complete perfect fixes for our violent world. Instead of searching and waiting for some perfect solution we should strive today, now, to improve our situation by reducing the violence.

Today by way of a song I came across a group dedicated to improving the school situation. The group is called Sandy Hook Promise. They offer free training to schools and youth programs to educate students about recognizing early signs of violence.

The song that lead me to this group was "The Dreaming Kind" by Sheryl Crow. She wrote the song after the recent Las Vegas shooting. She decided to give the song to the Sandy Hook Promise as a vehicle to raise money. I made small donation for the song download. The Sandy Hook Promise has the links and information for making donations. The song starts with these lines:

I turned off the news again tonite
It’s getting hard to watch everyone fight
Every time I turn my face
I see the world from outer space
How small we are but look how much we have to waste

I don't see this so-called "war" on Christmas. I see a "war" on joy, peace and goodwill. Another Sheryl Crow song (about 10 years ago) suggests that we need to get out of our heads and into our hearts.

we don't know why

There are many things we don't know why they happen or exist. Learning from our past and observations is a useful exercise.

Often knowing or not knowing the why answer has little impact on our lives. When tragedy strikes we strongly seek the why answer. Knowing why gives us an idea of how to stop or at least avoid it from reoccurring.

Why did a 29 year old man kill strangers in a night club in Florida?

As Mary Schmich writes in her column about this terrible event:

"Human principle No. 1: Human beings are always more complicated than you think at first."

My twenty-something nephew wrote a good post about his thoughts on this shooting. Please give it a read. It inspired me to write my post.

His simple answer is hatred. My initial reaction was that is obvious and hate can't be control very well at all. Then I thought about it a little more.

While complete world peace is not coming soon, maybe it could come to your surroundings and spread a little. From ancient times we have been told to love one another (most of us anyway). That is a great message. Even just respecting one another will provide benefits. We certainly don't need to promote hate and profit from it.

I imagine gun sales would drop off significantly if 99.9% of us respected and treated kindly 100% of the others no matter their diversity. So sure there would still be people with bad dangerous intentions. Though I don't believe there would be as many as today.

"Imagine" by John Lennon

Yes this is the view of a dreamer, but dreaming is not a bad thing. Dreaming can open your mind.

"...
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
..."

senseless violence bothers me

I started today with other ideas for a post. This certainly is not a complaint about anything to do with this blog or my day. I had a fine day.

Not so for too many people in Boston today. As of tonight's reports three innocent (one child) people were killed by bomb blasts. Many people lost parts or whole limbs. Everyone lost a bit more of our feeling of security and peace.

I'm not closely connected to Boston. I have visited the city, mostly on business. I shared a great weekend there with one daughter that happened to coincide with a tall ship festival.

The news of this senseless violence has bothered me since I read it on the internet.  I wonder why.  I didn't know anyone there.  Maybe I'm just human.  A father who can't imagine the pain of losing a child.

Writing this post is helping me not focus more on the news reports. I will watch more but hopefully it will not be like September 11, 2001 when I turned into a news junkie. (Here's my 10 year anniversary post about that much bigger senseless killing.)

I wish the victims and their families were able to finish the fine day they were probably enjoying. Fine days do get ripped away for you by tragedy.  It is worst when the tragedy is a senseless attack by another human.  I pray the wounded recover quickly, the families find strength to continue their support of each other.

damn

My motto here at “A Few Clowns Short” is lighten-up. 

A 9/11 remembrance. 

Damn the motto for this post. Nothing to lighten-up about given the enormous sadness that filled that September week and lingered like a dirty film on the days that followed. 

The heroes were a bright spot. The coming together of strangers seeking to help others provided hope to keep many going. 

The tragedy reminded us that an awful dark side exists in enough people that we need to be aware. 

Painful. 

Forgetting about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happened. 

I don’t have some hero story of my own, but I found myself working with someone who was pulled into the tragedy. Her name is Lisa Jefferson. It forever changed her life.

The week previous to that Tuesday, I had interviewed for a job at GTE Airfone (name was changed to Verizon Airfone months later) and I was still waiting get an offer.

We live near the flight paths for both O'Hare and Midway airports. It’s very common to see and hear airliners flying in and out. Those September days following 9/11 had a noticeable empty sky above us.

The small act of kindness we were able to provide that day was helping Johnny, our daughter’s friend who was stuck at O’Hare airport. We picked him up and gave him a place to stay for a few days.

I flew a flag. I talked with family. I watched the news. I cried. We all cried.

I took that job offer from Airfone. It was a great job. Airfone (yes it’s spelled with a ‘f’) was the company offering a public phone in the seatback of a few airlines. United Airlines was one of our biggest customers/partners. Flight UA 93 was the hijacked plane that did not hit the terrorist’s target.

The passengers and crew learned after contacting the Airfone operator that other planes were hijacked that morning. A group of passengers decided not to allow the terrorists to use their flight. The flight ended in a fiery crash in a Pennsylvania.

While at Airfone, I worked with Lisa Jefferson and her husband who also worked there. She was a calm and peaceful lady. I don’t pretend to know her well, but all my interactions with her tell me she is a wonderful kind person.  She passed along Todd Beamer's last words, "Let's roll".

Someday 9/11 will be another history lesson like Dec. 7, 1941. If we are lucky some will learn from it. The National Geographic Channel has a site dedicated to it’s remembrance.

I want to leave this post with a better word than it began.

Peace.