For the most part this blog has been light-hearted in tone, sometimes informative in nature, occasionally tinged with a bit of gratuitous sarcasm but just for the fun of it. I have used it to express my faith in God but not so much to display my lack of faith in my fellow-man. I have avoided overly serious and heart-wrenching episodes because they are available elsewhere to those who want them.
But I cannot avoid this one.
My heart hurts as I write this and I mean that in the most literal sense. The physical pain that accompanies the emotional anguish is very real.
I had watched a football game and when it ended I switched to NBC network news and that just in time to see them display the assassination of a young man as he lay in a fetal position, doubtless begging for his life.
Our visual arts media has fed us so much violence, gratuitous violence as entertainment that our society has become increasingly inured to it. Inured to it to the extent that the gore and techniques of producing it become increasingly horrific. And now we see this result. The producers of the news program think it not inappropriate to show a clip of a living terrorized human being being shot where he lies.
When I witnessed this my heart immediately clenched, the tears sprang from my eyes and my voice trembled so badly I could scarce convey to my wife the hurt I felt.
I do not know any of the principals, neither the slain individual nor the killer. I weep for them to the extent that they are a part of the human family. But the ache I feel, the sorrow I am enduring is for our society which has apparently reached such a level of hardhearted and uncaring insensitivity to our fellows that showing such an incident to the nation, to the nation's children, is acceptable and to be accepted and condoned.
Forgive me but I may have a difficult time finding it in my heart to forgive those who chose to air this atrocity. But then, we are all guilty, are we not, for allowing the process of hardening our hearts through the guise of entertainment to make it possible for this to have occurred?
And now I weep for our children.
5 comments:
I agree and share in your sorrow.
This is why I no longer watch television, we use ours for movies only. Sadly, that only helps us.
JaCquelineand, I appreciate you for your sharing in the grief and for your good judgment in your selection of entertainment.
Jacquelineand, I am moving this post to head the next one. Your comment may be lost. I hoep not.
I agree completely! Our "entertainment" has turned into graphic violence...and we wonder why these sick things are happening day after day. And we wonder where people get their sick ideas???
We quickly flip the channel when the commercials for the few shows we watch turn to gruesome images of murder and torture. And the news? Forget it.
You are not alone--it upsets us as well.
Lin, people are amazing and I mean in a sad way. Just don't seem to "get it."
Chuck, a welcome "second" from Secondary Roads.
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