After the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School where a gunman shot and killed 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7, a lot of the news is about the how. What could make someone do something like this?
At the same time a different kind of discussion is circulating. What heroes these teachers were, who did all that was in their power to save their children!
Then there are those who talk about using this to become better people ourselves.
There are two kinds of people in the world, according to Viktor Frankl, the moral and the immoral. As he writes, “No one will be able to make us believe that man is a sublimated animal once we can show that within him there is a repressed angel.” (Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, p. 65)
As human beings we have the potential for both, as expressed in the following source:
“For this reason God created the human being on the sixth day, creating him from the two ends. He placed within him a soul by which he can know the Creator as an angel knows, as it is written, For the candle of God is the human soul. And He created him with a body out of coarse material similar to an animal that eats drinks and sleeps. This stimulates big internal fights all his life because the animal soul entices him to drives like an animal and the pure soul fights against it and shows it that this was not its purpose in being created but instead it was created to serve the Creator, like an angel does.” (Aruch Hashulchan, Orach Haim 1:1 Rabbi Aaron Halevi Epstein)
Any one of us has within us the potential to be one or the other. But this does not mean that the gunman could easily have behaved like the teachers or the teachers like the gunman. They made themselves into the kinds of people who would do what they did.
Listen to the kind of person who is Emily Parker’s Dad. “Let us turn this into an inspiration to help others…When you help other people you feel better about yourself…You can always be more loving and understanding, willing to accept your children just as they are…”
So where does this leave us? Will the caring people in the world become more caring and the evil magnify their evil?
Those people who lose their humanity and take the path of murder want to be famous, and if they can’t be famous they will be infamous.
I want to be careful not to identify THE reason for the shooting. At the same time it is worth looking at trends in society to see whether they contribute to callousness or to compassionate caring.
We need to change our basic orientation from “What’s in it for me?” to “What is my responsibility here?”
We are all part of something greater than our self. The world does not revolve around me. Yet, I AM important. I am an important player in the orchestra of life. The world is not the same without me in it. This is true of every single person on the planet.
This statement begets sacrifice, not because I don’t matter but because I have an important role to play. There are values that I care about and without which, life has no meaning. Someone with this awareness says, “I accept my assignment. I will serve and perform my mission with love.”
This brings me back to yesterday’s post about the therapeutic value of belief in a super-meaning. If you believe that everything you do is stored in some kind of spiritual dimension, then you take yourself and what you do seriously. What you do matters.
But it doesn’t only matter because of what does and does not “work for you.”
The therapeutic value of basic trust in life entails belief that life is guiding you to where you need to go, that you are here for a reason and that at each and every moment life is calling you and bringing opportunities, no matter how small, to make a difference in the world.
What does this consciousness do for you?
It brings a whole new depth of experiencing life. Events are not haphazard and accidental. What happens to you is not a series of isolated incidents that require you to “be positive” and repeatedly stand yourself on your feet like a wobbly bowling pin being hit for no rhyme or reason.
Everything is an opportunity and invitation for the next step. Sometimes we have to let go of seeing the whole picture (because the whole picture is not given to us) but instead to do the one right thing in front of us.