Intro: 00:00

Welcome to the Infinitely Precious Podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

James: 00:12

Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and, today, this is formatted to go out both on my Facebook, personal Facebook page, as well as as my podcast. It's a special edition of the podcast since I'm only podcasting once a week now. The last several days have had me reflecting deeply about violence, about violence that is rampant in our world. You'd have to be sleeping not to know about the political assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, or three months ago, the political assassination of a democratic leader in her home.

James: 01:11

Not to mention all the other forms of violence that seem to be happening in our society, wars, in Europe and, The Middle East and Africa, places where violence seems to be real, and we spent a lot of time thinking about how could I talk about this? How can I let this go by without speaking something into it? Not to speak some form of judgment on who's right and who's wrong. I think there is a great danger in any kind of violence. In our society today, we've come to mostly think of violence as what happens in in wars or gun violence in our streets, in our classrooms, assassination attempts of various political persons on both sides of the aisle and those attempts on people's lives, we tend to think of violence as physical violence, domestic abuse included.

James: 02:25

But there's other kinds of violence. Things like emotional violence, bullying, shaming, tearing down people's dignity, robbing them of their identity, by, demeaning their race or sexual identity or sexual orientation. When we rob people of their identity, it's a form of emotional and psychological violence against folks. Mental violence, when we manipulate or put out false information with regularity, when we gaslight other people, those are forms of mental violence, spiritual violence. When we use our faith, whatever that faith may be, exclude anyone or condemn anyone or dominate anyone for who they are as a person.

James: 03:28

I see a lot of spiritual violence, and it saddens me deeply. Then there's rhetorical violence, which unfortunately is part of what sets the scene for other violences to happen, when we take away someone's humanness, when we other them, when we inflame people who are like us to hate someone who is not like us, those those pieces of language, can be used, in a way that dehumanizes and that invites violence because if a person isn't human, then perhaps it's okay to do whatever we want to to them. You know, there are countless. I come from the Christian tradition, and I speak from a Christian lens. I am thankful for my, for my mother, the church, for following the path of Jesus who himself taught nonviolence.

James: 04:44

I think of biblical stories like the story of Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel, and we're talking early in the biblical narrative. We're talking Genesis chapter four, near the beginning, where two brothers can't see eye to eye in the sacrifice they make, and, one kills the other. Cain kills Abel. And we asked and the question that arises out of that so often is, am I my brother, my sisters, my siblings' keeper?

James: 05:24

You know, what is my response? What is my place in that? And so when I think about all this violence and what it's doing to the way we see each other, to the deterioration of our society, where the violence of words as well as the violence of weapons is used to other so many other so many folks around us to, and almost allows for the justification of the violence when violence is never justifiable. We could speak about the inner dimensions out of which this violence grows unresolved anger, a personal sense of impotence, of being out of control, and the desire to grab control again and out of fear and that unresolved anger, using words in a violent fashion to belittle and rob another of their dignity, using our physical force to put others in the place we imagine they belong, that kind of acting on that inner fear and anger in unhealthy ways rather than to deal with what's making us angry, to figure out what's up. What is it we're really afraid of?

James: 07:18

What is it we're really angry about? Instead of merely lashing out. And even to discover if the anger and fear is of the other, that it's not okay for us to be violent towards others just because we're afraid, just because we're angry. I think about the emotional words, the wounds that we carry, and the words that have cut deeper than any kind of physical blows might, and how that leads us to see ourselves as lowly, sometimes even leading people to carry out violence against themselves. And because we feel negative about ourselves sometimes without being self aware enough to recognize it, we transfer.

James: 08:13

The temptation is to transfer that sense of insecurity of our own onto others. Wanting to feel better about ourselves means putting those others down as if that could make us feel any better about ourselves. Rather than dealing with our own stuff, we live in a world that invites us to be just a little bit more kind to one another, kind to ourselves. And yet even this morning at before at breakfast, just before breakfast, as, my son was headed out the door, he said to me, dad, I think you've got, rose colored glasses on still, and I just can't wear those anymore about the world in which we live. And I don want to have rose colored glasses.

James: 09:10

I don t don t idyllically see the world in which we live as if it could magically be fixed. It's gonna take hard work, but violence is not the answer. No matter how vehemently I may have disagreed with any person, doing violence to them does not solve anything. And while it may temporarily give me a rush of, adrenaline to do emotional, mental, or physical violence, it's gone. And all that remains is the need to do it again to feel better about myself.

James: 09:56

Violence doesn't solve anything, and I'm talking about physical violence, verbal violence. It it is a way that seems to offer a permission to to hurt others, you know, and it just perpetuates a cycle of violence after violence. You do something to me. I do something back to you. You do something back to me, and it just goes round and round until someone is courageous enough to stop.

James: 10:35

To stop. I don't know what kind of courage it's gonna take in our world. It's certainly gonna take political leadership that doesn't demonize each other. We are all human beings. You don't have to agree with me.

James: 10:52

Don't have to agree with me religiously or spiritually, politically, or any other way, but you certainly can respect me, and there is no reason to dehumanize me, and there is no reason and no justification at any point to refer in denigrating ways to another human being no matter who you are. In fact, the more voice you have, the more you're heard, the less you should ever use violent rhetoric in the way that you speak. There is no excuse for it except the very brokenness of our humanity. I wish I wish there were an easy an easy answer to this. I would like an easy answer.

James: 11:51

But as my son was quick to remind me this morning when he said I he couldn't wear rose colored glasses anymore, there is no easy way out. We feel the anger rising. We feel the frustration. We feel the uncertainty. We hope it's not gonna happen again, and yet it does.

James: 12:08

And then when it does, we promise action that we don't take. It's most prevalent among gun violence where people blame guns. Some people blame guns, and some people say guns don't kill people, people kill people. Well, guns make it a lot easier. But I'm not here to argue gun, you know, gun control or not, because I'm not going to convince you no matter which side you're on, no matter how I feel about it.

James: 12:44

Once again, I don't want to do violence to you. But realize that, violence is what you do with those items. Violence is what you do with your words. You can do with your words. You can do it in the way that you denigrate other human beings.

James: 13:04

Violence is perpetuated all around you. You need to be the solution. I need to be the solution. Stop it. Stop it.

James: 13:16

You hear somebody talking about somebody else, someone who's your friend, tell them you're not interested in hearing it. You're not interested in demeaning anybody else. You know, not because their faith tells them it's okay, I question faith like that, but it's not. It's not. So what are some practices that might be some beginning places?

James: 13:42

Because I gotta try. I'm not can't offer anything simple, but begin by deep listening before you react. I'll tell you that the last two days of occasionally looking on Facebook has made me angry. It's made me angry about people on both sides of the aisle. The rhetoric has been ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, And so when I feel that kind of visceral thing rising inside me, I need to take a step back.

James: 14:25

I know myself well enough to know that feeling. I know how I can can heat it up some more, how I can add fuel to the fire, but I also know that the ways I can step back. You know, anger is rarely a good reason to do anything. I m not saying, you know, people like to argue about righteous anger and that kind of thing. It s a good motivator and it doesn t leave us with a clear mind to act in ways that are loving and wise.

James: 14:58

So first begin by deep listening before reacting. Find ways that speak affirmation rather than diminution. You know, affirm people, affirm your own position. You can say, I can say, I don't see it the same way you do. From my perspective, this is wrong.

James: 15:37

From my perspective, when this happens, it makes me fearful. It makes me angry. I can speak from, I can speak from my personal place, but I don't need to diminish anybody else to speak my own feelings, my own position, my own frustration, my own anger. I don't need to blame somebody else. No one can make me angry.

James: 16:06

Anger rises up from within me in reaction because of my own programming, because of my own internal way of seeing things. My perspective is where that anger rises, where that frustration rises. It's my perspective. I can't blame somebody else for that. That's mine.

James: 16:29

And so I need to deal with it. If I need to stand up about something, if I need to protest, if I need to confront, I want to do so without diminishing the person I'm confronting. I don't have to say ugly rhetorical things about other people to tear them down in order to have a conversation with someone I disagree. And I hope they don't need to do that for me. Articulate what you feel.

James: 17:03

Articulate what you what you think, where you're coming from. Use I statements, not you statements that are always so often blaming of the other. Speak from your own perspective. Refuse, last of all, to perpetuate harmful jokes or labels. If you're not fond of the LGBTQIA plus community, I'm I'm sorry you are, not fond, but there's no reason to say diminish, you know, demeaning or dehumanizing things about the community.

James: 17:39

There's no reason to do that at all. At all. I've heard people use spirituality to justify it and religion to justify it and their own mental conditioning to justify it. There is no justification. If you don't agree with something, just don't say anything.

James: 18:06

Don't say anything. Don't demean any other person. Our call, and this is speaking from a person who follows the path of Jesus, is to love. That's my whole gig. The rest of it I can leave to God to sort out, but for me my whole thing is to love.

James: 18:26

To love everyone and everything that God loves, which is everything. Period. And that means people I agree with and people I don't. So I wanna wish you the best. Look for ways to reconcile.

James: 18:45

Look for community approaches that help make things better. Cultivate inner practice in your daily lives through prayer and mindfulness, through letting go and forgiveness, and each small act matters. Please engage in random acts of kindness, as stupid as it sounds, because it makes a difference in the world and don't give in to temptation to join in with whoever it is, your peers, your friends, your family who demean anyone else. Stop And if you're courageous enough, say, I don't wanna hear that. I can't hear that.

James: 19:27

It's not okay with me. We're talking about people here. We're talking about people that matter. They're made in the image of God as much as you and me, whoever they are, and that includes you. Remember my friends, this has been a long one.

James: 19:42

Remember my friends, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. Remember that, and I hope for you that you can find true peace. Peace is not just the absence of violence. It's a sense of wholeness and healing and and completeness. That's what Jesus teaches us away too.

James: 20:07

So until the next time, you are infinitely precious. You are unconditionally loved for the gift you already are, and I wish you all the best. Until the next time.