Friday, September 02, 2005



"Until we feel security, you will be our targets........"

.... so says the London Bomber. I have not seen his pre-murder home video yet - but read the text from his statement.

I try to understand the man. I am not going to slag him off and-jump into clichés. So often a human turns in to 'a thug' or 'a lout' by the media when there is behaviour out of the norm. I want to try to understand the mind of the mass murderer. I want to try , ok impossible for a fumbling mind, to see into the person. An act of pre-meditated mass murder - what is this all about?

The line above stands out from his death lyrics ....... and my eyes lock the word 'security'.
Maslow, the famous Social Psychologist, places the need for security as number two in his famous heirachy of human need. A sense of security is needed for humans to grow and take steps, and risks, for their own development. I see it all the time. When a human feels secure they will move to the the next level of needs, the Maslow number three, 'belonging'.
I work and strive to facilitate this happening - it is a journey into wholeness for me and all of us - it seems to me.

In this case it seems to me that this man found a sense of security in a group of other humans who wanted to destroy human life. He 'belonged' and accepted the social norm of that group which ended in tears and death for his own family and so many more families.

So -I think - we can find security and belonging in a group which is positive and is committed to development of others and the world itself too - or we can, at the other end of the spectrum, find security and belonging in a group which destroys. .......... I pause and ponder. How can this be? My experience in life .............. it tells me that humans become more sensitive and positive to themselves and others as they themselves develop. Here a man joins a group which takes the way of extreme violence to demonstrate their opposition to whatever. And - I presume, with a direct wish to change the way of society.
So it must be that he found a sense of security and belonging in a group which was oppressive rather than liberation. 'Join this group and behave like this'. NOT 'join this group and become free to be all that you can possibly be .............. and work for the same for others' ............ do you think?

Big examples of the latter are Martin Luther King and Ghandi. They worked for change but on a foundation of non-violence and respecting the sanctity of all human life. Jesus, who I study and have a lifetime commitment to - is the prime example of this.
To hurt and destroy those who are different is............. such a wicked way.

We must, those of us who are people of the Way, a different way, must strive to find our security and belonging in love and love supreme and extreme.
It is just not enough to watch tv.
It is just not enough to call people 'thugs' and then flick the channel to something more entertaining.

I am an extremist ................... and I want to think more about all this ...........


"We cannot love God unless we love each other.
We know him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore.
Heaven is a banquet, and life is a banquet too - even with a crust - where there is companionship.
We have all known loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community."
Dorothy Day



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