When I wrote about Sandy Hook elementary school a few weeks ago, I received more hits on that post than all the other posts I've published combined. I know I can attribute the high visitation stats for my blog, in part, to the borderline sick obsession with social media we all have in the wake of "big news." Sensationalism, if you will--not of the act itself, which was so unimaginable it could hardly be sensationalized, but of everything happening before and after the fact of the shooting, everything we projected onto those sweet victims and that one perpetrator.
Even still, for me thinking about and writing that post got me into my personal obsession with what I referred to in that post as "the myth of redemptive violence" as opposed to the Jesus myth and other myths from other cultures that speak to us instead of a radical redemptive love.
My husband and I tried to pick out a movie to go see the other night from a list that included Tarantino's latest, Django Unchained, and the Jack Reacher movie (which my dad told me had a body count of 11). I've never been a Tarantino fan, which makes me a leper in my group of writer friends. I walked out of the first installation of Kill Bill after Uma Thurman's character murdered a woman in front of her young daughter. I'm not conservative or prude and I appreciate aesthetics, story line, and Tarantino's regular breaking down of stereotypes.
But I've had it with violence as entertainment or aesthetic medium. I've just had it. It's the same reason I despise myself every time I can't pry myself away from an episode of Game of Thrones and why I don't sleep well afterwards either. It's the same reason I felt horror when my college students, huge Tarantino fans, submitted a complaint to the university that I made them watch a documentary that showed violence against indigenous people in South America. Aestheticized violence, fine, but real life, no way they could handle that. The popular story line of violence as revenge and redemption, custom made with a an audience primed to be in zealous support of the hero or heroine--it makes me worry that we're really spiritually ill, and I wish we'd tell healthier stories, even ones that include violence since violence, of course, exists in the world as a real character.
At any rate, I wanted to write about all this and more and then, as providence would have it, my dear friend and reader posted a link to an article by Paul Tullis from last week's New York Times Magazine and I realized it WAS the sermon I wanted to write.
Here it is.
Read it.
Think about it.
How radical, how radiant, how cutting edge.
Amen.
Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?
Even still, for me thinking about and writing that post got me into my personal obsession with what I referred to in that post as "the myth of redemptive violence" as opposed to the Jesus myth and other myths from other cultures that speak to us instead of a radical redemptive love.
My husband and I tried to pick out a movie to go see the other night from a list that included Tarantino's latest, Django Unchained, and the Jack Reacher movie (which my dad told me had a body count of 11). I've never been a Tarantino fan, which makes me a leper in my group of writer friends. I walked out of the first installation of Kill Bill after Uma Thurman's character murdered a woman in front of her young daughter. I'm not conservative or prude and I appreciate aesthetics, story line, and Tarantino's regular breaking down of stereotypes.
But I've had it with violence as entertainment or aesthetic medium. I've just had it. It's the same reason I despise myself every time I can't pry myself away from an episode of Game of Thrones and why I don't sleep well afterwards either. It's the same reason I felt horror when my college students, huge Tarantino fans, submitted a complaint to the university that I made them watch a documentary that showed violence against indigenous people in South America. Aestheticized violence, fine, but real life, no way they could handle that. The popular story line of violence as revenge and redemption, custom made with a an audience primed to be in zealous support of the hero or heroine--it makes me worry that we're really spiritually ill, and I wish we'd tell healthier stories, even ones that include violence since violence, of course, exists in the world as a real character.
At any rate, I wanted to write about all this and more and then, as providence would have it, my dear friend and reader posted a link to an article by Paul Tullis from last week's New York Times Magazine and I realized it WAS the sermon I wanted to write.
Here it is.
Read it.
Think about it.
How radical, how radiant, how cutting edge.
Amen.
Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?
Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?
After 19-year-old Conor McBride killed his girlfriend, her devastated parents tried a process called “restorative justice” — because they decided his life was worth saving....
Restorative justice, like resiliance requires a clever storyteller to make it palatable to many Americans. But I am still hopeful. Mama
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