The so-called information age challenges us every day to live in peace, be calm and centered, and keep our faith with the world. I was driving to a meditation session and the news about Arizona was everywhere – the computer, Ipad, the radio, cell phone alerts, TV monitors in gas stations and stores. Information is no longer a choice. How does one reconcile meditation with such tragedy?
Whether we like it or not, horror is beamed to us from everywhere, and many seem addicted to it. Bad news used to come once a day, if that, and now it is continuous, invading our homes, our computers, the air we breathe. Managing it has become a seminal problem for people who wish to live free from fear.
We not only bad news at any time, from the ether, but is is assaulltive, graphic and relentless. It challenges us in so many ways.
Yet I am learning to deal with it, to live with it, a toxic consequence of technology, the exploitive nature of media, and our times.
I pulled over, closed my eyes, and said a prayer, for all of the people killed and injured in Tuscon. I wish them grace and healing support.
Then I take a breathe, and build a boundary in my head, and move on with my life, the only way I know how to live.