Mass Killings: Why Prayer and Thoughts Aren't Enough

Everyone, including me, is reeling from the mass killing in Las Vegas this week.

It brings up not only horror, tragedy, mourning, the most intense grief – but it also brings up the hotbed of discussion around gun control.

A dear, dear friend of mine whom I know to be compassionate, fair, and extremely intelligent posted a highly controversial FaceBook post in the aftermath.

She stated that the posts of people saying that their thoughts and prayers are for the victims of the Las Vegas murders and their families are worth nothing.

I understand what she means by this because I know her very well. She is not judging people’s sincerely, deeply held religious beliefs or commenting on the power of prayer.

What she’s saying is that these prayers aren’t nearly enough. These thoughts for the victims and the victims’ families aren’t enough. The thoughts and prayers alone aren’t going to change anything. They aren’t going to prevent this from happening again.

And she’s right.

It’s not enough to have tender, loving, empathetic thoughts toward those who perished. It’s not enough to pray. Those things are both wonderful and human and divine in and of themselves, but they are not enough for this epidemic of violence sweeping through our homeland.

Real, lasting, transformative change comes only when we as people embody those thoughts, embody those prayers. We have to become the intentions behind our thoughts and prayers, we have to back them up with action.

Our culture is broken. Our values are the worst kind of materialistic, consumer-driven tripe, totally lacking in substance. People are encouraged to own, to amass, to achieve on the outside of themselves, to the total disregard and total destruction of the inside of themselves.

We don’t know how to feel, and what we do feel, we don’t know how to deal with.

We don’t know how to ask for help, we don’t know how to let our anger and despair loose in healthy outlets, we don’t know how to be human with each other. We only know possessions, appearances, fashions, fads, and owning. We only know labels and compartments, we only know the sins of our forefathers. Our government leaders only know their own childish, immature, petulant, self-serving, short-sighted desires.

The news outlets want to scare and manipulate us into submission, treating us like cattle.

And we let them. We hand them the power every minute of every day.

As my beautiful friend Krissy Van Alstyne says, FUCK THAT NOISE.

Prayers and thoughts aren’t enough. It’s time for a serious overhaul of our collective souls. It’s time to tear down this broken culture and rebuild one that actually works. One that actually lets us be human beings – not shallow, self-serving automatons.

It’s time for feelings, not possessions.

It’s time for souls, not egos.

It’s time for service, not manipulation.

It’s time for empathy and sincerity, not appearances.

It’s time for giving of ourselves, not for increasing buying power.

This post sounds remarkably negative and pessimistic as I re-read it. I can only say that’s a reflection of the heartsick I feel at the violence that seems to happen each week all around the world.

I actually love people as a whole. I’m actually quite optimistic and hopeful about the world in general.

But I’m tired of watching these cases where people do violence to one another. Because nothing justifies it. The news commentators want the motive, they want to know why the gunman did it. This question comes up over and over in these shootings and instances of murder and violence. People ask why.

As if any answer to that question could ever satisfy, justify, or adequately explain the horror that was perpetrated? As if any possible answer could ever excuse?

There is no reason anyone could give that would in any way explain, justify, or validate these kinds of acts. No religious dogma, no personal persecution, to social “statement”, nothing.

There is no why.

But it has to stop.

And the only way that happens is for us to start being human beings. Real human beings. To stop taking part in this broken culture. To rebel against it. To become love, to become forgiveness, to become peace.

You don’t become peace by taking more lives, by starting fights, by inciting riots, by provoking people under the veil of a “protest.”

You do it through respect. You do it through forgiveness. You do it through humility. Through dropping your sense of entitlement, your sense of offense, your sense of the individual mattering more than the collective health of us all.

Loving ourselves. Loving each other.

That’s the only real prevention of another Las Vegas shooting spree. Another 9/11. Another Sandy Hook. Another Paris bombing. Another London Underground bombing. Another spree killing in Australia. Spain. Canada.

Feeling heartsick. And feeling a lot of love.