Ru-May-Nations: 5

Death: the end of a life of a person or organism.
Death is rattling as anything. There is this oddness with death wherein it seems to simultaneously rattle and unify people. I think that there is something about the permanence of it, the face that the dead person is never going to return, that makes it so jarring. There are many stigmas surrounding death and often people do not even know how to act in general. About a year ago Isla Vista was hit with a tragedy that saw several people die. Allow me to add a disclaimer here-I do not intend to soften or demean what happened; what happened sucks and there is no getting around that. However, I have been thinking lately about what the best way to honor those who died is. We seem to think that simply erecting monuments, holding vigils, and spreading awareness absconds us of responsibility. Death is final, and we should treat it as so. I think that these small instances are, well small. Really, should we not try to do something that has a more lasting impact than simply erecting more monuments, such as doing our best to live well or alleviate suffering in the world. Isla Vista is a place of an incredible amount of excess, that is the simple fact, and people make it their seeming mission to revel in this excess instead of using it to bless or help those less fortunate.
This is something that I have been generally pretty frustrated (borderline disgusted, but because of my own glaring inaction, I hesitate to use that strong of a word) with lately, that people around me chose to revel in excess and lavish luxury when people around the world are suffering so much. The evil of our world manifests itself as sweatshops, underage brothels, homelessness, horrifying religious persecutions, and the like. Some people know this and seek to do something to change the status quo of the world, but although I applaud those few people, they are few and far between. Far more often, people simply ignore the evil around them or do some very minor thing to alleviate some very minor amount of suffering (such as tossing a buck to the homeless man on the quarter) to ease their guilty conscious about the difficulties and evils that they are not doing more about.
These two seemingly unrelated topics become related, at least in my mind, when death produces such a simple and response and one that is not more long-lasting. It is simply disheartening that this is the reality we live, that death produces monuments and long-lasting, on-going suffering produces strikingly less. The question then becomes, how exactly do we get people to care more about the suffering in the world such that not only death but also suffering itself elicits a compassionate response from people. Perhaps I am asking too much, perhaps it is all just wishful thinking, but I wish that death produced more than just a vigil (or at least that a vigil had some inherent value to the external world). Do not get me wrong, I think that giving people an avenue to deal with grief is incredibly important, same with giving people room to mourn, but I just wish we did more while people were still alive. To me, the best way to honor people who are dead, like everybody who has ever died, seems to be to destroy evil, love others, and alleviate suffering, even if that is difficult.
This is something that I am still processing, and I will admit that there are times when I allow the part of myself that simply wants to revel in excess instead of efficaciously caring about those around me, to thrive. It feels great, but it accomplishes nothing beyond the feeling. Celebrating is good, but I think that we have created a god (or at the very least idol) out of celebration and party in our society and we need re-orient ourselves. It is not easy, but simply reveling in excess seems like an entirely selfish way of life. God help us if all that we care about in our lives is ourselves without giving more though to our fellow men. It is more fun pleasurable but exceedingly selfish. Get outside of yourself.

On the lighter side: I just got a box of organic vegetables delivered to my door through one of the many programs in Santa Barbara that offers this service. I am excited.