After Anger, Only Sadness

On Tuesday, as the events of the Boston Marathon bombings sank in, I, along with most of the United States, was angry.  I wrote about how we are defined, not by our anger, but by what we choose to do with it.  Now, though, the anger has faded.  The story ended, as too many of these stories do, with a scared young man lying in a puddle of his own blood, pathetically trying to hide from the consequences of his actions.

And when it comes down to it, that's what this story is: pathetic and sad.  We don't yet know what drove these two men to mass murder -- though plenty of people are willing to fill the airwaves and the internet with their own theories -- and even if we ever hear the full story we probably won't understand it.  I have dark corners in my soul, but even so I cannot imagine the sequence of events that would lead me to say, "I know, let's blow up some people who've never done anything to us!  That will show them -- er -- something!"  I don't know what dark visions of glory, fame, or notoriety lead someone down this path, and I'll be honest: I don't want to.  I don't want to understand it, empathize with it, or justify it.    Nor do I want to spend my energy demonizing these two young men.  Their actions speak for themselves, and nothing I can say will make them any more or less evil than they are.

As always, there's a danger here for those of us who seek a deeper meaning or motive behind these events.  As we look at the backgrounds of two immigrants who chose to turn on their adopted countrymen, and as we look for ways to sustain our fading anger, we can find all sorts of generalizations that help us make sure that we aren't the kinds of people who could commit such a heinous act.  They're Chechens, and those people have always been dirty fighters.  Just ask the Russians!  The older brother recently renewed his commitment to Islam, and we know how dangerous that can be!  They had funny-sounding names.  Never trust a man with two consonants at the beginning of his name!  And on, and on.

Each generalization gives us a new target for our wrath, another category of human being who is less human than we.  It allows us to vent our rage on women and children, as one man did in Malden this week.  It allows us to hate this 19-year-old boy and suggest setting him on fire or cutting him to pieces for his crimes, as I saw people do on Facebook and Twitter this week.  It allows us to sustain our wrath, because we feel that this is the only way to honor the fallen, to recognize the simple wrongness of this act and hold it in our hearts.  In the face of great evil, we depend upon our anger to sustain us, and in so doing we perpetuate the evil and reflect it upon others who have done us no harm.

For me at least, the time for anger has passed.  The perpetrators have been caught, and if there are more who worked with them, then they will be caught, too.  Let justice be served as it should be: rationally, dispassionately, and fairly.  As the story continues to unfold, as motives are ascribed, described, and invented, let us remember that we were not attacked by a nation or a religion, but by individuals who had chosen the darker path.  As we grieve with parents, children, brothers, and sisters who have lost loved ones this week, let us truly grieve.  Let the tears flow and perform their cleansing action, washing away the anger and leaving only the sadness that, hopefully, will also fade with time.  Let us refrain from attention-grabbing displays of grief and anguish, from public breast-beating by people who have only a passing connection to tragedy.  Let us grieve together, then let us heal together.

I've had a lot of tears this week as I watched this drama unfold: tears of sadness for lives cut short, of anger for a city wounded and a sacred event destroyed, of pride in my city's response to yet another tragedy.  I am sure that something will touch my heart again as I watch my city heal.  I hope that I will be able to feel nothing but pride as Boston pulls together again to help the wounded, to lift up the grieving, and to keep the blame where it belongs.  Stand strong, Boston, and stand together in the light.

On Anger, in Sadness

I am angry.  I want to howl, to rage, to hit an old-timey cowboy over the head with a chair.  Someone blew a hole in my memories yesterday, desecrating an event that represents the purity of competition and international cooperation, and marking my "other hometown" as a target once again.   I don't live in Boston anymore, but the bombing at the Boston Marathon struck home as deeply as if I were still walking those streets.  I used to watch the marathon from that very corner, and now I'm pissed.

You've heard of anger, right?  It's fear's brawnier twin, the aggressive half of the fight-or-flight instinct. It fills the veins with adrenaline and the muscles with blood, ready to pound any threat into the ground. It also focuses the mind, the better to identify and outsmart any predator.  When we are angry, we become the human equivalent of a heat-seeking missile; our mission: seek out and destroy the target.

Of course, that's the problem with my anger right now: I have no target.  None of us do.  We want someone to blame, and our anger wants to see that person's hide stretched out on the gold roof of the Capitol Building.  In fact, I'm not sure that would even be enough.  I want a shot at him first, just for five minutes, then someone else can have a turn.  When we're all done, then they can have his hide for an awning.

Did I mention that I was pissed?

People will tell you that you shouldn't be angry, that it's not healthy.  They will tell you that you shouldn't be angry at whoever did this, but that you should feel sorry for them or try to see things from their point of view.  These murderers felt justified in what they did, they had good reasons for it, so all getting angry does is give you ulcers.  They will tell you that reasonable people don't get angry, because anger is a primitive emotion that has no place in civilized society.

I say they're wrong.

When good people see a heinous act, anger is an appropriate response.  In fact, it's a righteous response.  Getting angry at the murder of innocents shows that you understand the difference between good and evil.  Explaining it away as a reasoned response to some political situation shows that you have murdered your own conscience on the altar of intellect.  In the face of evil, I recommend a good old-fashioned, heart-pumping, fist-shaking rage.

It's what we do with our anger that differentiates us.  When the missile is armed and ready to fire, which target will you choose?  In the absence of a perpetrator, will you invent a target, a political straw man to beat on for your own purposes?  Will you let that anger leak out on your friends, colleagues, and loved ones?  Will you go out and find someone who looks like the kind of person who would do this sort of thing and beat the crap out of him?  Or will you put that focus and energy to better use?

Now that your mind is focused, what will you set it on?  Now that your muscles are strong, what load will you carry?

I want to scream and cry.  I want to punch holes in things and destroy private property.  I want five minutes, just five minutes, alone with a self-righteous bomber so that I can show him the error of his ways.  Instead, I choose to turn toward the light.  I choose to love my family fiercely, to protect them from hate, to teach them to love, and to give them the tools to know the difference between the two.  I choose to use this energy to make the world better, to focus on the problems before me and provide solutions, to seek opportunities to love and laugh, to fill this world with joy.  In so doing, I strike the hardest blow that I can against hate, against fear, and against evil.  Just try and stop me.

I am madder than hell, and I will not take this lying down.

Holiday Lights

Starbucks has broken out the red coffee cups, so we're officially in the holiday season.  Don't like it? Feel free to stay in your house with the heat turned up, playing your "summer jams" playlist for a few more weeks.  But let's face it: the nights are getting longer, the days are getting colder, and we're entering that special season of the year once again.

No matter how you celebrate them, the holidays are different from the rest of the year.  People are more open, more willing to see the good in others, more receptive to the idea that miracles can happen.  Now, as we approach the darkest months of the year, we look for light.  Of course, for this very reason, the holidays are anything but "the most wonderful time of the year" for some, especially those who have lost loved ones or who find themselves in dire straits.  For the widower going through the first (or tenth) Christmas without his beloved wife, for the single mom who can't afford presents for her kids, this season brings desperate meaning to the phrase "Blue Christmas."

Happy or sad, in celebration or depression, this is the time when people wear their hearts on their sleeves, so this is the time to reach out to them.

This year, I want to challenge you, my friends and readers, to join me in making this season even more special for the people around us.  Let's make this a year that sticks out in people's minds as the year when their faith in humanity was restored.  Let's scrub the residue of an election season that seems to have lasted forever out of our minds and hearts and look at each other with fresh eyes: as people, not talking points.

What if this year, we all tried a little harder to make someone else's season bright?  What if, instead of buying a toy and dropping it in the Toys for Tots barrel or giving to a charity before the year-end tax deadline, we did a small kindness for a neighbor?  What if we went even further and did something extravagant for a stranger?  How can we make holiday memories that have the power to change lives?

In our house, we make a big deal about the holidays.  With our combination of Jewish and Christian traditions, my kids hit the holiday jackpot every December, getting 8 nights of Hanukkah as the lead-in to Christmas morning.  We love to celebrate our combined heritage, and we have always made it a point to share our joy with others through parties and gift-giving.  We've also made it a family tradition to reach out to our community, buying gifts for families who couldn't otherwise afford them.  We have more fun as a family going Christmas shopping for our "adopted families" than we do shopping for ourselves, and we look forward to it every year.  In recent years, though, we've started to ramp it up, looking for extravagant ways to bless other people during the holidays.

It started about 8 years ago with a DVD player.  We had adopted a family through the Salvation Army's Christmas gift drive, so we went shopping for two adults and two kids.  Their "gift" list was depressingly basic: soap, shampoo, toothbrushes for the kids.  Each kid asked for one gift, and the parents just wanted some clothes.  But someone, probably the worker who received the list from them, had added to the bottom of the list, "And they would love a DVD player if someone can get it for them."  When we went shopping, we started with all of the basics, but then we got to the bottom of the list.  DVD players weren't exactly cheap then, and this wasn't even something we would necessarily buy for ourselves.  But it felt right.  We wanted this family to open their presents on Christmas morning and say, "Wow!  Someone cares for us!"  We wanted to recapture some of the magic of the season for people who were probably used to lowering their expectations, for parents who were probably saying, "Honey, I'm not sure if Santa will make it to our house this year."  We wanted to give someone a moment of joy.  So we found a DVD player, wrapped it, and dropped it off with the rest of their presents.  And it felt good.

Since then, blessing strangers extravagantly has become an important part of our holiday traditions.  We watch for the "giving trees" and the toy drives and we look for the biggest requests, the little paper ornaments that are still hanging on the tree after all the dollies and remote control cars have gone.  My wife is particularly good at this, being a gift giver extraordinaire, and she has a knack for finding the gifts that leave the organizers shaking their heads and saying, "Boy, I never thought they'd get that, but I can tell you they need it."  Over the years, we've purchased bikes, tricycles, and microwaves, and last year my amazing spouse topped it all off by arranging the surprise delivery of a couch to a family in our area.

So why do we do this?  Are we rich?  Not really, but we've made this kind of giving part of our family budget.  We call it "the blessing fund," and we set aside a portion of our income every month to be used to brighten the lives of others.  We have a "use it or lose it" policy, and whatever we don't spend each year goes to charities that we choose together.  Do we do it because it makes us feel good or to assuage our guilt for being better off than others?  While it's true that it feels good to give, this goes beyond that.  This is an intentional effort to let people know that they are loved, even if it's by a stranger.  We do it because we believe that God loves us and has blessed us with enough money to provide for our own needs with some left over to help others, and we spend that money in ways that maximize its positive effect.

Why don't we just give that money to charities?  While charities provide many vital services and they deserve our support, I think that sending your money to someone else to do good work is nowhere near as tangible as helping someone directly.  And despite some suggestions from well-meaning magazines, I don't agree with the idea of spending your kids' gift money on charities as a way of teaching them about selflessness.  No child is going to be excited to hear, "Your present this year is that we gave a goat to a family in Africa!" unless you follow that sentence with, "And we're going to visit it!"  But let them choose a gift that they'd like to receive and wrap it up for a kid in their city, maybe even in their school, and they start to understand the joy of giving.

So here's my thought: what if we each took some portion of our holiday budget, whether it was intended for ourselves or for charities, and spent it on the people around us?  What if, on top of the small gifts for the toy drives, we also chose one family and gave them that one big gift that they never actually thought someone would give them?  What if we opened our eyes to the greatest needs around us and chose to meet them?  What  kind of difference could we make in our communities?  Whatever you think the answer is, let me tell you: it's bigger.

Here's the thing about extravagant giving: it touches people's hearts and it changes their lives.  Small gifts are nice, but they aren't that unexpected.  We all try to give a little extra around the holidays.  But give someone a couch and you'll get their attention.  It shakes them up, makes them question their assumptions, because someone went out of their way to do something nice for them, something they couldn't or wouldn't do for themselves.  And here's the other thing: it also might just be the one thing that they were praying for.  That extravagant gift, that moment of undiluted joy and surprise, might be the difference between giving up and going on, between a slow slide into despair and a new lease on life.  This is the season of miracles, after all, but the people who need them most have the hardest time believing that they still happen.  Surprise them with that answer to prayer and they may think that you're an angel in disguise.

Now, you don't have to buy furniture to change someone's life.  Even a small unexpected blessing can turn someone's day around.  Here are my suggestions for making someone's season bright:

• Start small.  If you haven't done this before, ease your way into it.  Pay for the coffee of the person behind you in line, or buy the groceries of that little old lady who's trying to pay in change.  Half of the fun lies in the surprise.  If you're shy like me, you don't even have to let them know who did it.  Just buy a gift card and ask the cashier to use it to pay for people until it runs out.
• Be creative.  Look for something out of the ordinary that will be just what someone needs, and listen to your heart.  If you see someone sitting alone at a restaurant and it feels like they could use a boost, then buy their meal on your way out.  If you know someone at work who's going through a tough time, then get them tickets to a show or a concert that you know they'd like.  Find ways to acknowledge the person behind the present, to meet their need in that moment.
• Be open and look for the unmet needs.  At this time of year we tend to focus on the kids, as we should, but there are many other people who are looking for some magic in the cold winter months.  Look for the people who everyone else forgot -- the parents, the senior citizens, the college kids who can't go home -- and let them know that they still matter, that they are seen.  Talk to the people who know them and ask what they need, then find a way to give it to them.  Watch for the people who cross your path every day and ask yourself, "What can I do to surprise them with joy?"  You won't be able to do it all, but if you keep your eyes open you'll your personal assignments.
• Finally, work together.  Being extravagant isn't easy, and it takes both time and money, as I learned with "Take Back the Movies."  But "many hands make light work," as the old Englishman said, so find some friends to join you in this task.  Pool your resources and adopt a family for Christmas, or throw a party at the retirement home, or buy that student some plane tickets so he can go home for the holidays.  You'll all enjoy the challenge, and you'll grow closer to each other even as you reach out to others.

To quote Charlie Brown, "I almost wish there weren't a holiday season. I know nobody likes me. Why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?"  Let's find the Charlie Browns of the world and let them know that they are loved, that they matter.  Let's make this season a real Festival of Lights.

Act

On Friday, I talked about the power of choice.  You can choose the light or the dark, and you change the world with each choice you make.  I said that, in a world where one person can traumatize an entire region with his actions, it's up to the rest of us to choose the light.

Of course, choice is meaningless if it isn't accompanied by action.  You can choose to believe all kinds of things, crazy or sane, positive or destructive, but they have no weight until you act on them.  I, and others like me, need to respond to this horrible event, not just feel bad about it. We need to spread a little light, a little joy, and drown out the darkness that one man brought into all of our lives.

So, after much thought and bouncing my ideas off of some trusted friends, here's my idea: I want to give people a night at the movies. Not just a few people, but whole theaters full of people. I want to go to theaters in the Denver area (and especially the area around Aurora) and say to everyone who walks in the doors, "Tonight, the movie's on us. Go, enjoy. This isn't a fundraiser, it's not a memorial service. Some douchebag tried to steal a night of fun from all of us. Tonight, we're giving it back."

This may seem trivial in the face of the tragedy that we experienced, and I know that going to the movies can't bring people back from the dead. But where one man tries to sow hate and destruction, I believe that it's up to the rest of us to respond with love and life, to seek out joy rather than embracing that darkness. If we just sit around and feel bad, then the douchebag wins.

To me, this isn't about politics or policies.  It isn't about gun control or the price of freedom.  It's about people.  People who are hurt and afraid, who have had something special stolen from them.  People who think about going out to the movies and now think, "Maybe it's safer to just stay home."  This is about a region that has been traumatized once again by stupid, selfish, mindless violence.  I can't turn back time and make this go away, but maybe I can heal a little bit of the memory by giving people a joyful moment at the movie theater.

I've found a few other people and companies to join me in this crazy idea, and we welcome more people to join us.  We're taking Denver to the movies on Saturday, August 11, and I want to treat as many people as possible.  If you'd like to join us, go here for more details.

Let's spread a little light together.

Choose

In the aftermath of last night's mass shooting at the midnight showing of Batman here in Colorado, everyone is already trying to understand what happened and, more importantly, whom to blame.  Did the movie make him do it?  Is it Hollywood's fault for constructing bullet-ridden fantasies and foisting them on the public every summer?  Is it the NRA's fault for making sure he had access to the weapons he used?  Is it the government's fault for not enforcing gun control policies or not banning the sale of assault weapons?  Is it the media's fault for covering these sorts of terrible events 24/7 and drawing crazies to the spotlight like moths to a flame? 

Let's be very clear here.  One person is at fault: the shooter. 

No one made him do this, he wasn't tricked into committing a heinous outrage against humanity.  He chose to attack a group of strangers, he methodically planned that attack, and he carried it out.  At any point, he could have turned back and not done this, and no one would have known, but he made the choice.  That's it.  No mitigating circumstances, no political arguments, no media spotlight.  He chose, he acted, he killed.

Free will's a bitch, ain't it?

We are all independent beings, each created with a free mind and a free will.  We have complete freedom to act, and both we and the world bear the consequences of those actions, good or bad.  The same mind that can create a symphony of aching beauty can craft a message of enduring hate.  The will that can choose to lift up starving children from poverty can instead choose to massacre innocents.  That's the power of choice, and it comes with the birth certificate.

We all want to know why this happened, what drove a man to murder his fellow human beings.  We want to find some extenuating circumstances, some childhood trauma or chemical imbalance that made him incapable of knowing right from wrong.  More than anything, we want to know that this potential for unreasoning violence is limited to him (or people like him), that we could never do anything so awful.  We want to lie to ourselves.

Because in the end, the why doesn't matter.  The reasons that we hear, or the ones we make up, won't change the fact that every one of us has the same power of creation and destruction in our hands every moment of every day.  With every choice we make, large or small, we make the world more beautiful or more ugly, full of love or full of hate.  And the consequences of these actions ripple around us constantly.  Some actions, like last night's, make a big splash that quickly reaches around the world.  Others may only touch a few people, but those ripples keep going, as action inspires action inspires reaction, until the waves carry over the horizon.  You will never know how many lives you will change simply by being on this planet.  Your power is greater than you can possibly fathom, and you don't even have to get on TV to use it.

So what will we do with this power?  That's the question we must answer every day.  Will we choose to work for our own benefit, to take what we can and let everyone else fend for themselves?  Will we reply to evil with evil, hating those who we think have done us wrong?  Will we abdicate our power to others, letting them make the decisions and simply choosing to follow along?  Or will we revel in our world-changing capabilities and make our own waves? 

More importantly, how do we respond to the evil, destructive choices of others?  I, for one, believe that good can overwhelm evil, that "perfect love casts out fear."  When one person chooses great evil, then many people must rise up and choose to go out of their way to do good, in large ways and small.  We can choose to sit around and be fascinated by one person's horribly wrong choices, or we can choose to go out and make more beauty, more love, more joy, and drown that darkness in light.

That's what I choose to do. How about you?