Maribeth Price: 2017

I wanted to write something that would help me sort through and process the crazy mess going on in our country right now; I don't know if it's possible to do, but here goes...

A man walks into a church in Texas and shoots dead 26 people. In Charleston, SC- precious church going people died because they were black. Another man plans the slaughter of many at a music festival in Las Vegas and murders 59 people. A different man walks into an Orlando nightclub - 49 dead. Another gunman, Aurora movie theatre shooting - 12 dead. A younger man enters an elementary school and murders 20 children and 6 adults.

As I write this, sexual harassment stories are all over the news. Started serious enough and now it seems that everyone who had their butt pinched for the last 30 years is suddenly outraged and "courageously" stepping forward...into the spotlight for their next few minutes of exposure, ironically, and in effect, trivializing the issue by exaggerating their truth for personal gain.

CNN and Fox News - switch back and forth between their web pages for the news and you will see clearly that truth has become subjective, and perhaps false. Democrats and Republicans - Russians, back room deals, millions of dollars paid to win: politicians smile and wave.

Personally I have been internalizing this all and as much as I would like to dismiss it from my psyche, I can't so I have decided to write this for my 3 blog followers. (Smile).

Who are these people and how did they get that way?

Can a society be healthy when children that are raised within it are spending more of their time playing video games, texting, watching TV or videos then they do interacting with other people? Humans need the touch of others, the facial expressions in conversation, the ability to share together. How can electronic devices provide that? These same children have watched outrageous horror movies where realistic depictions of savage murders are clearly portrayed. They have watched overtly sexual videos at ages that they shouldn't even know what a sex act is. A person eats junk food - a person becomes unhealthy. In the name of freedom of speech everything has become a human's right to produce whatever song, video, game, movie they desire, however depraved - and the right to do so has eclipsed the moral right to protect and defend the innocent.

Abortion - the right of the carrier is greater than the carried.

Death - the right of choice to die is served rather than the God who created the dying.

My mother, 1983, a few months before she died at home from ovarian cancer, with her grandkids. She let God decide how long she lived.

I used to retouch negatives years ago when it was done by hand - using a machine where you put the negative in front of an opaque glass with a light behind it and with a very small brush, contrasting dye and a magnifying glass, you dabbed away acne, scars and wrinkles so that when the negative was printed they had been removed.

I got very familiar with the contours of faces working on 30 negatives a day. Due to that experience I can spot plastic surgery that has been done fairly quickly so I might be more sensitive to viewing it - but I can't understand how swollen lips and skin stretched tight is beautiful. The majority of the selfies you see of young women have the "pout" - and I can't help but believe these young girls are spending too much of their precious time and energy trying to portray an image of themselves then being themselves. And the fashion industry and the entertainment industry spend billions to keep putting an unrealistic image out there, to the real harming of vulnerable young women.

How did we as a society get this way? Sin, violence and inhumanity is not unique to the United States or this generation - but our society still has descended into a more violent society and self centered society that created these mass murder monsters. How can that be fixed?

Practically, I believe parents can make it a priority to raise society conscious kids, not self absorbed avatar's. That would be a start for the benefit of society in 20 years. As far as right now those who are already adults can stop, take a deep breath and visualize the mass of humanity on this planet, 7.442 billion, to aide them in realizing that THEY are not so special themselves. I would hope this vision of the mass of humanity would generate humility. Humility breeds knowledge and wisdom in the place of pride, arrogance, and vanity. Maybe a big injection of humility in our society would work against the tide of selfish humans who work only for their personal gain. Maybe we would celebrate the volunteers who work with Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, those who man the soup kitchens all over the country and comfort the dying in hospice. Maybe we would realize that a 4.5 million dollar engagement ring is really a gross neglect of the poor, weighed in the balance. Maybe.