My writing The Forgiving Place, The Mind Tavelers, Love in Country, all focus on violence and forgiveness.
What’s the deal with picking violent people to forgive and encouraging them to forgive. Well, if I can forgive them, I can let myself off the hook from hating them and we can all go home together in peace. So that settles it; I don’t need to write anything more. Well I guess I do because the world will never give up on violence and my mind is still tempted to embrace it.
Today the world and more specifically the mind of humans has created the war in Gaza. Civilians are slaughtered by Hamas and Israel slaughters Gazans and back and forth. We need to have a talk about violence, or at least I need to hear a talk about it because of its special place in my mind and in my culture’s. I suspect your mind also gives it special heed. The whole defend and attack approach remains hard wired in our brains.
What did I want to do after my wife was murdered, after getting over the initial terror that I would be murdered next? Naturally or insanely, my instinct was to track down the murderers with the help of loved ones and slaughter them, pausing before the final kill to torture them thoroughly. We see Hamas played out this scenario though it seems the Israelis skipped the torture and went straight for blowing people up.
This way of doing things may sound natural or insane to you, probably one or the other I wager, but I assure you the experience of thirsting to maim or kill makes you crazy. When purely experienced, it also makes you feel powerful. It’s quite a seductive energy as Ian, a character in Love in Country, goes to war from patriotism, missing the love of his dead soldier father, but also from a sense of adventure. Violence is exciting and gives the illusion of undoing what’s wrong with us. Most violent people feel powerless over being wronged and now feel powerful as they strike out. Elevated testosterone in reaction to violence makes men stupid. I don’t what it does to women.
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