Stop the Violence

I’m tired of the violence…I bet you are too.  Right after Charlie Kirk was shot, I had to make the conscious decision not to watch the video.  I admit it, I knew Kirk only from FB videos, but I simply didn’t want that image in my mind.

I’m still having a hard time getting the fear from the picture of Iryna Zarutska’s face right before the murder out of mind…I didn’t want to see the video…just that look was enough.

The young man who shot and killed students in Colorado was supposedly linked to a series of violent videos on the internet.  Input seriously impacts our minds and our actions.

I tried to get away from the videos of the killing and numb my mind on FB and there were videos of fights, videos of fights from fights, and then a video of sharks attacking baby whales and I thought, “What’s wrong with us!”

Somehow, we must change the algorithms of our visual input.  I’m not sure we can be peacemakers, as in “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” if we continually pour in images of violence, listen to violence in our music, or watch it in our movies.

I’m seriously not trying to be a prude…I went back and looked up prude to make sure I was using it right and Webster used an example, “He is too much of a prude to enjoy movies containing sex and violence,” so I guess I am a prude!!  But if I’m going to fight a thought by thought battle for holiness I must learn to carefully control, all that I can control, what comes in my mind.

I find I am drawn more and more to beauty.  There is an inherent violence in nature, but getting away from the screens, cutting back on my social media time, and spending more time in the Word and in prayer has started the algorithm of my mind.  Want to join me?