Reflection Masthead
Issue 140 - Violence - July 2016

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"Marchers Want Violence to Stop"*
     We are not marching but we are using our available resources, this Reflection issue, to stand in solidarity against violence.
     Our hearts and prayers go out to those harmed in any way by the violence in Dallas, Falcon Heights MN, Baton Rouge, Orlando, and our own neighborhoods.
*Headline, San Antonio Express-News, July 10. 2016. 
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Past Issues

1-Inaugural

2-Creating Sacred Space

3-Leaving Footprints

4-Ordinary

5-Ordered Life

76-Vanier Visit

87-Wondrous Fear, Holy Awe

91-Crater Lake

100-Iceland

101-On Reflections 

102-Morning Moments

108-NBA Championship

110-On Freedom 

112 Robin Williams 

113-Matisse 

116-Kentucky Epiphany 

119-Christmas Mystery  

120-Stability 

121-Radical Amazement 

122-St.John's Bible 

124-Botanical Garden 

126-Call of the King 

127-Living Our Stories 

128-Pope Francis 

129-Saint Francis 

130-G.E.Mullan 

131-The Way of Peace  

132-Danube Reflections  

133-Want Happiness? 

134-Our Uncertain Certainties 

135-Corita Kent 

136-Stillness  

137-Incompetence 

138-Daniel Berrigan 

139-Jubilees    

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Copyright (c) 2016 Soul Windows Ministries

Sincerely,  Bill Howden & Jan Davis
Soul Windows Ministries 
Violence
      
       Last night in my dream, I was on the way to start a new spirituality group. The bus was parked under the portico to drive me and a gathering of eager supporters to our new location. I could see beyond the bus a beautiful hilly, lushly green, idyllic landscape. In my dream I experienced a cluster of peaceful, uplifting emotions and energies.
        Most of my dreams are like that. I have never had a nightmare. I have never seen a horror movie. Never, in
my whole life. If there is an unexpected violent scene I turn it off or I leave. I was taught as a child that everything we see or hear makes an imprint in our mind. I am so grateful that my parents instilled the lessons of beauty and peace.
       Peace and violence don't sleep in the same bed. Violence, insidiously pervasive through the media, movies, TV, and video games has engraved images in the mind like tattoos on the skin. I know a family whose babysitter, an uncle, showed toddlers in his care zombie, alien, and horror movies. With the bevy of violent movies, media, TV, at every turn, still, we wonder why the violence. Today's Express News headline was "Dallas now seeking to understand why."
       "Stop the violence!" is the cry of parents of victims and demonstrators, of journalists, politicians, and public officials. But the violence must stop in our homes first. Violence must be replaced with beauty, truth, and love. It is up to each of us to take action to bring peace in our families, our relationships, and yes, our world. We must guard our eyes and ears. The beauty of the landscape I saw in my dream was an imprint of the mountainous terrain I saw earlier in the evening, watching Le Tour de France on TV. It made an imprint.
                                                                              --by Jan 
 
Indifference
In John LeCarre's novel,  A Delicate Truth , Toby Bell, a mid-level official in the British Foreign Office, seeks to uncover the truth about a botched special-operations action in which nothing was achieved, innocent people were killed, but the scandal covered up for years, while the planners of the misguided operation continued to pursue their lucrative careers.
At one point, Bell muses on Schiller's comment that human stupidity was what the gods fought in vain: "Not so, in Toby's opinion.... What the gods and all reasonable humans fought in vain wasn't stupidity at all. It was sheer, wanton, bloody indifference to anybody's interests but their own."
The legitimate target of Black Lives Matter, it seems to me, is certainly not the police, not even excessive use of force by the police. Sheer, wanton indifference is the target. My indifference, as I shake my head, then shrug my shoulders and switch channels when news breaks of another young black man who has died at the hands of law enforcement.
Equally culpable, of course, is my indifference to the news that another police officer has been killed in the line of duty. Even before the Dallas ambush, and before the two bailiffs were killed in Michigan, more than 20 U.S. police officers had been shot to death in the first six months of 2016. That last sentence deserves an exclamation point - but, too often, it gets only a shrug.
As we lament the recent death of Elie Wiesel, let us not forget his words: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." 
                                                                                      - Bill
 
Poem by Nikki Giovanni