Promoting Peace amidst Gun Violence

There is too much gun violence in our country.

That shouldn't be debatable but it is for some in our country.

But no matter how you slice it, tens of thousands of lives are cut short every year by guns. There are murders, there are murder-suicides, there are suicides and the accidents too. Its too many.

We need to consider the costs to our society and our lives.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2013/10/gun_violence_epidemiology_garen_wintemute_on_mental_illness_and_background.html

As a father of five, I think about guns and kids:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html

We need to pray and to act in peace:

Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Mimetic Desire (Rene' Girard)

A pastor was just killed in Louisanna when the murderer thought the pastor was having an affair with his wife.

This fits perfectly with what Abbott Andrew has been talking about using the work of Rene' Girard and it is important stuff!

What is it?

"René Girard has given us a whole new dimension to explore in the subconscious by suggesting that it is primarily mimetic desire that we find there. (See Human See, Human Want) Mimetic desire, the desire of others that has infiltrated us since birth, gets under our skin and deep into our hearts. Hence the importance of the desires we present to small children to absorb. What keeps mimetic desire in our subconscious is our defiant pig-headed conviction that our desires belong to each of us alone and to nobody else. The stronger this sort of conviction, the more likely the desire is entangled in serious rivalry with somebody else; maybe a lot of somebodies. Somehow, we feel threatened at the idea that our desires are intertwined with the desires of everybody else and we push them away, only to have them manipulate us at very deep levels."

Start here:

http://andrewmarrosb.wordpress.com/posts-collected-by-topic/mimetic-desire-and-mimetic-rivalry/

then go here:

http://andrewmarrosb.wordpress.com/posts-collected-by-topic/mimetic-desire-and-mimetic-rivalry/mimetic-desire-and-truth-series/