How to avoid the risks of another mass shooting: Manage the Grievances
Whenever I visit my mother in the nursing home we watch reruns of Gunsmoke on TV. It's a good program, but notice that in every episode, "The Gun" is involved somehow in solving the problem, or in addressing the grievances. Over the years, we have allowed ourselves to lapse into a false sense of empowerment by the growth and development of our "Gunsmoke Culture." Like it or not, this is the shape of American culture today. Many historic comments could be made about how and why things came to be this way, but this is the reality in which we live. Changing our culture in any significant way is not going to happen any time soon. Our Red/Blue political divide has us stuck in a place where none of our elected officials can do anything. This is because, at a minimum, 49% of the people will automatically disagree with whatever proposals are put forth.
So, what can we do? My suggestion is that we learn to manage the grievance. What is the grievance? This is something, or a collection of somethings that belong to each of us on a very personal level. The grievance is what we feel as we look at how things are not going the way we need them to in our lives. Our grievances are as diverse as we are. Some are physical. Some are political. Some have to do with our jobs, or our lack of jobs. Some have to do with relationships, or money. The only common denominator is that we all have our grievances and we need to learn to manage them constructively. We need to manage them constructively, not destructively.
In order to manage our grievances constructively I suggest we focus on three things.
1. VALIDATE. Nothing upsets us more than being told our grievances do not matter, or that they are not important. The first step in helping someone who is in trouble is to validate their concerns. Once the trouble is out there where we can see its reality, and evaluate it, we can proceed to the next step.
2. EMPOWER. We need to help each other to see and to know the multitude of constructive options we possess. Then we can start to take some steps toward solving our problems and freeing ourselves from the illusion that there are no options.
3. LIBERATE. Many of us feel as if we are stuck, immobile, moribund in our grievances. When we feel as if we are completely stuck in our troubles, that is when we are most tempted to lash out in some desperate, or irrational way.
Our challenge is to learn how to help each other. You do not need to be a mental health professional to help a person who is in trouble. We can help each other by validating our concerns, by empowering one another, and by helping one another to see that we really do have other options. We can liberate ourselves from the places where we feel stuck. Things really will get better if we learn how to work together and to help one another through the rough spots we all encounter.
Watch Pastor Steve’s video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SAPvprcI4RM
