what is it all about?

Another Canadian soldier died today from a homemade bomb of hatred. A married father of three daughters. A man who was an elite human soldier from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry..... Corporal Nicholas Bulger. They played an interview with him on Canada Day and he spoke of how different it was to be in Afghanistan because he sees how much of a difference our Armed Forces are making. He stated that he saw it when he watched the children play freely when they once weren't able to. "When you look into the eyes of the children, you get a different perspective...." he said. A different perspective.... we could all use a bit of that kind of insight.

I think he saw human universality. He could relate to those children because it connected him to what he knows and sees here, on his home turf of Canada. It was obvious that it touched his heart with inspirational motivation, and in turn it touched me. I connected to this soldier because I was able to see and hear him ..... I heard his emotions .... heard his human-ness. And because I connected from my heart, I am saddened by his passing at a deeper level. I understand what he meant.

One Canadian man died today. 5 other soldiers were injured from the same blast. They were all members of Brigadeer General Jonathan Vance's technical team who toured sites with him, protecting him, reacting to any threats, responding to violence. Every death of a soldier is sad no matter what side of the trench he/she is on. Every death of an innocent victim is sad. Every death from the suffering of conflict is sad.

Violence prevails on every corner of our planet in some capacity or another. It's been there from the beginning of man, which makes me acknowledge to myself that we all have the potential to be violent. Even if I choose not to be, I still have it in me. Everyone does. So, what is it in a person to allow the violence to surface? What lies underneath the ACT? What is it that feeds hate which in turn flames a war? The only thing I can think of is a festering fear.....a fear so intense and so unresolved that it ferments in its own seething irrationality.

What do you fear the most? What are you most frightened of? It's good to know. It's important to consider what it is you fear and why...... AND how it impacts your choices and how you see others, both in your own neighbourhood and beyond. You can't work on those fears if you won't even begin to take a look at them. And they will fester....and they DO impact your choices and your lens. No one is exempt from this.....

I have been haunted by the photo Paul posted on his blog this week.....a man holding a mortally wounded child in blood stained clothes, his body contorted in death... his innocent face striped in his own blood. Maybe before this boy was injured, he was able to somehow get lost in some form of play? Even under those circumstances? I don't know.

The man is carrying this young one (his son? his neighbour's son? his nephew? a stranger to him?) along the drydirt path beside the wall that keeps them in and away from basic necessities, in the line of fire. Violence prevails. It prevails on both sides of the wall only the humans within the cement fortification have no choice but to attempt to survive as prisoners, as sitting targets of violence. Innocents suffer. There are no words.

What fear feeds this hatred? What anguish sucks the marrow out of love? Frightened of the other? Is that it? War and violence stem from our incessant fear of someone who is different? Different religion, different culture, different way of interacting in this world?

I read a story Jean Vanier conveyed about a Jewish woman named Etty Hillesum who died in Auschwitz at the age of 29. In her journal after she had been yelled at by a Gestapo officer, she wrote: "I felt no indignation, rather a real compassion and would like to ask: 'Did you have a very unhappy childhood, has your girlfriend let you down?'"

There she was in a place of living Hell, but she had an abiding belief that each person is a "house" where God resides. She believed that every single person had the potential to carry the mystery of God within the essence of being able to love and to be loved. Through that lens, she saw the beauty in every individual. Etty Hillesum, Vanier wrote, is one of the people who has influenced him the most. I bet Etty projected a calm sense of kindness and compassion as her approach to combatting the hatred fueled in the hearts of the Gestapo who ruled Auschwitz. Through believing in compassion.......one always feels forgiveness.....

I wish we could teach this. I wish we could believe in the power of compassion and kindness....of empathy. I wish we could live by the belief that all human beings are loved and can love. If we have the propensity to be violent, than we all have the propensity to be loving. Right?

We could erradicate the fermentation of irrational fears and turn it into wine instead. Wine to sip and share...... If we really want to. We have to start at looking at our own fears....! Then the very idea of making a bomb wouldn't even be considered. Then maybe walls would come down and little boys could play within the safe haven of their peaceful neighbourhoods. Then we wouldn't continue to mourn the loss of human beings struck down by the violence of wars. But how? How do we turn this world around so that people stop spitting venom and hatred at one another? I think it begins by looking into the eyes of the other. Just like Corporal Nicholas Bulger did with the Afghanistan children. It changed his perspective.
It can change our own. When was the last time you truly looked into the eyes of another human being? It may make all the difference.

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This week's prompt at Sunday Scribblings is "human." To see more contributions, check out their blog.