On the Long, Slow Road to Love

Umpqua Community College...

Last June I wrote a blog entitled, “On the Long Road to Love,” regarding the shooting of nine church members of Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, N.C,. Now the haunting is back again with another mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in

Roseburg, OR., with nine dead and several wounded, and we are once again going over the same ground of hatred, anger, mental illness, and the availability of guns, but one thing is different. The law officer in charge of the case refused to speak the name of the shooter, even though he knew of the explosive media mania that was to come. He refused to participate in the strange, after-death notoriety that the shooter sought. Perhaps he refused to be a part of the hyper-speed ratcheting up that was sure to follow. Perhaps he actually wanted slow things down.

Hand-held devices...

Maybe we should ask: Does the instant availability of everyone, everything, everywhere, any time compressed into the hand-held devices plopped into our palms so overwhelm our brain circuitries and emotional judgments that we no longer have the time to process what comes to us? A researcher quipped that once we had 90% of time to process 10% of ideas, but now we have 10% of time to process 90% of ideas…and this was decades ago. Perhaps we have figured out most of the human frailties that go along with killing sprees, but maybe we have forgotten that there is no shortening of the time it takes to grow up as genuine, healthy human beings. Perhaps it is not enough to simply invent new technologies that bombard us night and day without asking ourselves if we can really handle all these new explosions of things. No, we can’t stop the tide of invention, but perhaps we can manage it better.

Love's wisdom...

With such knowledge, love’s wisdom must be present more than ever, and love cannot be hurried. Spiritual awareness does not usually come in a blinding flash; it opens and grows and becomes part of real adulthood, but even the occasional flash needs time to process and shake out. We cannot circumvent the time it takes to grow compassion, to learn kindness, to become a disciple of humility, and the very young have to walk along with us, lest they become lost in the warp speed of advancing technologies. Knowledge and wisdom must go hand in hand.

Not now...not ever...

We knew the road to love was long; now we know it is also slower than we thought, but never, never, never must we step off into impatience and frustration. Not now…not ever…

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