Costly, long-suffering, hope

After this weekend's horrible events in Northern California, I've really been struggling to hold on to my stringent peace position. I have made my life about the work of peace and justice in the world, and for the first time, I'm wavering. I'm beginning to understand those who call cops "pigs". I'm losing my grip on my own beliefs. When I see indifferent violence being carried out in my own world, to my friends, my brain gets fuzzy.

Please recognize that I know that there is horrific violence in the world every day. I know that in my being; I have known it my whole life. And short of banging on soft surfaces with my fists and screaming alone in an empty room, I am not a violent person. I don't believe in violence. I think it's silly, that we as a species would resort to harming one another to solve our problems. I actually don't understand it. I resist it in my very soul. But something changed inside of me when I saw that video on Saturday morning. Perhaps the door in my heart, that I'd shut long ago, had been opened, and I began to see that violence is not just something I hate, but something that is real.

This is not a naive experience for me. I was not born into my beliefs; I have had to earn them. And they have come at a very high price. Violence is real to me, but perhaps I've been looking at it with compassion all this time. I try desperately to understand the aggressor in every situation, to feel compassion for them, to find empathy for the pain that they must experience as a perpetrator, and then later as a survivor of that perpetration. But to see the indifference with which that cop calmly shook that can...my soul cannot contain it.

I wish that I could give you some kind of resolution to this issue (I myself have found a little here and here). I wish I could give you all the hope you need for your own life. That is my life's work. But today, I will fail you. I'm so very sorry.