Tonight, I watched a portion of the State if the Union address. I was inspired, particularly at the end where the President called upon the courageous acts of valor and the tragic ends found by so many children and families. I was so moved that i cried. I cried for those hearts and this country. Where did we go so wrong?

Afterward was the inevitable mocking of our President by pundits and armchair activists alike. The accusations that Obama is stepping outside his authority (he’s not). but the ones that really got to me were the many, many messages i saw on Facebook that again, push for more guns, more ammo, more ways with which to “protect” ourselves. It’s not just the message that is discouraging, it is the rage with which it is delivered.
I don’t usually hear gun control advocates telling someone they will cause violence upon those who oppose them, but it is usually only a matter of time before I hear gun lovers threaten violence to even the calmest of opponents.

I don’t believe in guns. And I keep wishing they were just a figment of my over active imagination and that I just wish hard enough they will all just disappear. I have lost friends through gun-assisted suicide, drive-bys and muggings gone wrong. I have yet to encounter any survivor of sexual assault who was saved by a gun during their attack….usually because nearly every rape and sexual assault is committed by someone they trust or even love. I would give anything to bring back the dignity that was stripped through a rape or sexual assault that was later turned into a shame-fest by those who insisted that “if you had owned a gun, none of this would have happened”. I would give anything to see the magnificent impact that friends lost to gun violence would have had on society had a gun not been present.

I don’t believe that guns prevent violence or that every gun owner is safe. I don’t care how many locks are on a cabinet or how clean the barrel is. What I want to know is whether every single gun owner can act with calm, reasoned precision while under pressure, during emotional turmoil or when psychologically triggered. I have met very few people capable of doing that and I don’t trust guns in the reach of anyone whose go-recourse to calm themselves in a crisis is a bottle of ills or booze….and that’s on a non-provoking sort of day.

No, until we heal the emotional and spiritual wounds that we carry as a nation and a people, guns become weapons of personal expression…and an imprecise and permanent one at that. Expression of our fear, our paranoia, our wounded ness, our emptiness, our rage, our hopelessness, our envy, our jealousy, our soul’s permanent damage. We can accomplish more by pouring those emotions into art and music and a fuckton of therapy. But instead, we subscribe to this unnatural device to “protect” us from the evil we, ourselves create. Yes, we are responsible. responsible for ignoring them, responsible for stigmatizing mental health, for Shoving them aside and driving them into further isolation. Instead, we designate the”other” as being the wacko, sicko, psycho nut-job that is out to get us. How is this not paranoia? And where is all this accountability that gets tossed about so casually?

But because one of the people on Facebook said that anyone who believes in gun control should get to die at the hands of a gun-owner, instead i wrote this:

Tired of the constant stream of negativity and fear-mongering I see around me. When I try to shift it I am accused of being naive, deluded or weak minded. Sometimes called stupid or a “bleeding heart liberal”.

Believing in peace, working for the betterment of mankind and rejecting violent “solutions” is not naive. It is brave and fearless in the face of the rampant, unchecked paranoid, knee-jerk rage of the masses. I care what others think because I think the longer we keep buying into this illusion that we are entitled to belittle, ignore, judge and harm others the harder our collective journeys become.

I do not dismiss someone simply because they do not agree with me…i hold out hope that they will someday find value in my life’s work. I care about human rights and the care an nourishment of the human spirit and do everything I can to help people shine their own light from within. Therefore, I take conflicts, name-calling and all forms of violence, whether emotional or physical, whether threatened or acted upon very seriously. The lashing out, the pushing back drive me further along in my message.

i am a peacemaker. i am the hands of the goddess, i a, the wounded healer. I shall stand at the crossroads and in the midst of inevitable change and provide comfort and meaning.

and despite the attempts of a great many people to either passively or actively discourage and dismiss these beliefs and this soul-driven purpose i keep coming back with courage and kindness even in the face of such invincible ignorance.

I don’t need guns or threats to make my point. I don’t need to call people names or raise my voice to demonstrate my power. I provide love, acceptance and respect…that is all the power I need.

And by this alone, I am enough.

We are a world full of souls starved of precious nutrients. Not just the minerals and vitamins that have been stripped away from those products we identify as food, but those very things in our soul that tell us we each have purpose, we each have light to provide, we each are worthy. We carry such tremendous woundedness, convinced that if they lose, they will wither and starve. There there isn’t enough, that they are not enough and there will never be enough to fully satisfy them. So instead, they pursue a temporary fix, a power high, anything that will distract from how much their soul is starving from malnourishment, neglect and limited perspectives.

And this is where I devote my time…my energy…and my own light.