Finding the LIght

The sun is out this morning, it is cold, but so beautiful. I needed this light. We all need this clarity of light, right now.

The Russian plane, the Beirut bombings, and the Paris attacks have brought out the best and worst of us. I don't want to talk politics, but I want to talk humanity. Humanity is hurting. 

Thich Nhat Hanh speaks in his book on anger, that the metaphor for anger is that of the arsonist. If an arsonist lights your house on fire (angers you), you have two choices--you can chase the arsonist or you can put the fire out in your house. If you chase the arsonist, your house (you) will burn and be destroyed. Therefore, he reasons, there is really only one good choice. That is, you use your energy to put the fire out, you use your energy to soothe and calm yourself of your fears and anger. 

This father did so for his son:

Yes, that wrenched my Maineiacheart.

I am a lover of neuroscience and neuropsychology. We know from studies in these fields that when we are angry or fearful, the parietal lobe (more commonly called the frontal lobe) of our brain is turned off--it doesn't function. This is the part of the brain that helps us reason logically, review evidence, and make careful decisions based on lots of information. Obviously, in cases of pure survival, it is not useful to have a brain that stops to consider all the possibilities, you just need to react quickly with a fight or flight response. It's the most primitive part of the brain, a holdover from the ancient civilizations whose lives were in danger at any moment.

In the debris cloud of these recent terrorist attacks, we seem to be struggling to not react out of the most primitive part of our brains. Fear and anger trigger that response. There is little thinking happening but lots of reacting. Many are wanting to chase the arsonist. I see it in the "us vs. them" rhetoric. The panicked drumbeat calling for troops, purgings, and refusals to provide refuge to people fleeing from occupation by these same terrorists or fleeing from war zones because maybe a terrorist will be among them.

Who doesn't understand that sentiment. None of us want to see terrorists strike. But, we must be careful to not become them. They want a land that is strict and rigid to certain principals and religions and ethnicities. They celebrate in "us vs. them" thinking. Us vs. them is the ideology that allows them to disconnect from humanity, from decency and ethics. It justifies treating "them"(their victims) barbarically. 

When you think about it, no one kills or harms without being disconnected from their victims. They always see the victim as a "them", undeserving of fair treatment, compassion, empathy, and love.  It seems to me that if we want to prove terrorists wrong, we refuse to disconnect from others. We refuse to engage in us vs. them reactions. 

Humanity is hurting, and it seems the way to fix it is through connection. Let the light from the candles burned in honor and memory remind us that the way to resist a terrorist is to not let them take away our ability to care about and foster humanity. Do not let them blow apart our connections to others. Do not let them extinguish the light.