Drilling for Kindness

What if instead of meeting violence with more fear and violence, we drilled down further into the roots of the problems that beset our society?

In the last couple of weeks, there has been a spate of shootings in the US—I suppose that is true of every couple of weeks in this blasted country teeming with fear, anger and guns. But the latest ones have been especially grim and gruesome because there was no motive; they were truly random acts of violence and senseless cruelty.

I'm talking about the kid who got shot for ringing the wrong doorbell when he went to pick up his siblings from a playdate; the girl who was shot for driving up the wrong driveway in the dark; the woman who was shot for mistakenly getting in the wrong car in the parking lot, a car identical to her own; the child who was shot when chasing after a ball that rolled into a neighbor's yard.

These incidents all happened within days of each other. And the beat of violence is only going to speed up as we head into the hot American summer.

So the question I'm sitting with is: how should we be preparing children and young people for this violent world we live in?

For the most part, we've offered a defensive reaction to the violence. Kids are rarely allowed outside without an adult these days. Americans arm themselves and demand armed guards for their schools. Schools conduct more and more safety drills, forcing everyone to vividly imagine the worst.  

Of course it's good to have some idea of what to do if an armed sociopath enters your building.

But at the same time, the more we focus on violence and drench ourselves in fear, the more unhappy and stressed out we will become, as individuals and as a society.

We've gotten to the point in our American epidemic of fear and violence where we need to stop focusing on the symptoms (a game of whack-a-mole if there ever was one) and start getting at the roots of the sickness.

·      Why are people so fearful that they feel it necessary to arm themselves with guns?

·      Why is there so little trust and communication among neighbors?

·      Why is there such paranoia that people shoot first and ask questions later?

·      Why are schools and teachers so often targeted?

These are huge questions that I am not going to be able to answer in a short blog post. But one thing I know is that the antidote to all this fear and violence is not going to come from more fear and violence.

I also know that while drilling may be necessary given how out of control the society has become, it will never succeed in transforming our sociopathic society into a healthy one.

The transformative approach would take a lot more time and focus.

For example, it might involve sending social workers out to talk with all those paranoid gun owners, to find out (without getting themselves killed!) more about their fears and rage, and how they might be eased, so that these alienated people could be brought back into the fold of society.

Some of the people who shoot their neighbors or classmates are surely certifiably insane, hearing voices urging them on to violence. They need treatment!

Others are just miserable—socially outcast, fearful and resentful. They need an outstretched hand—a warm, encouraging community and the development of better social skills.

Every human being needs kindness in their lives. We all need to have a sense of purpose, the feeling that we can contribute meaningfully to our community.  We need to feel secure that our basic needs for food, shelter, clothing and health will be met. In the super-wealthy United States of America, where no one bats an eye at blowing up a billion-dollar rocket ship, there is no excuse for anyone going hungry, homeless, cold or sick.

Drills, bans, and the threat of prison are not going to eradicate the deep social pathology that has taken root in the soul of America. It's a rot that can only be overcome by sunlight: the warm healing light of kindness and caring.

As a stop-gap measure, we may still need to drill children and teachers on how to manage their terror in the event of a crazy active shooter entering their classroom.

But we should also be drilling them on how to care for each other and everyone in their community, including the larger Earth community—how to practice "random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty," as the activist Anne Herbert put it long ago.

Everything that anyone does has a ripple effect, creating a psychic wave that goes out and affects everything else. Each pebble of kindness we cast will contribute to the pulse of positive energy that can transform the psychic weather on our planet for the better.

Although it's easy to feel despair at the immensity of the problems we face, despair is not an option. We are here to make a difference. No act is too small—everything we do has an impact, even if we can't perceive it.

Try putting a smile on your face today. Feel the power of that beautiful inner light, illuminating a world so desperately in need of its healing.

Smiling in the face of grief…no one has taught me more about this than Joanna Macy. Rowe Center, 2014.