"Is it possible we are so focused on the symptoms of violence that we have neglected to look at the roots of it?"

Larissa Kaye Batten (LLbeara@aol.com) writes "Soul Food," a weekly column for SpiritSite.com.  

Larissa is a prolific writer whose work has been featured in several publications.

Have you ever played the Frog game at an amusement park? The object is to stomp out as many frogs as possible – as quickly as possible – in order to keep all the frogs stomped down.

The hammer stomps down on one frog after another, only to find more and more frogs popping up to be stomped down once more.

I used to subscribe to the theory that a "call to peace" entailed stomping down violent act after violent act in order to achieve the ultimate goal – achieving a state of planetary peace.

Later, I realized that this method was in fact not helping the overall picture at all. One country ends a war; the next one begins one. One family goes to counseling; the next door neighbors begin their violence. A few less frogs or a few more frogs do not change the overall population of frogs.

Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Marianne Williamson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous Bill Wilson, Reverend Billy Graham, author Louise Hay, and many, many others have taken amazing actions in the name of peace.

But so long as violence, terror, addiction, shame, anxiety, and depression continue to reign in our minds, will the great acts of these men and women garner anything more than temporary success?

I believe we need to take a fresh look at how to achieve peace.

So long as the kid who attends his gun-free school returns home to a broken, chaotic family, how significant really is the gun-free school?

So long as the alcoholic puts down his last drink and proceeds to abuse his neighbors because of their race, how important is his last drink? How long will he even stay sober with his warring heart?

Isn’t it time to take another approach? We can try to stomp out the symptoms and yet face new horrors because the roots of the problem remain – or we can seek a new approach to peace.

Please understand: I am in no way suggesting that we curtail our efforts to eradicate so much of the violence and chaos we face today.

I am suggesting, however, that we need to redefine our efforts and goals. Is it possible we are so focused on the symptoms of violence that we have neglected to look at the roots of it?

Have we become so focused on each and every frog that we have forgotten to find the source?

I feel that many of us have overlooked our individual contributions. We have become virtually addicted to the newspaper and television reports on major acts of violence and trouble. We have taken our focus off our own selves and souls, off of our own families and friends, in the name of a misunderstood call to peace.

We have become distracted by school shootings, drive-by shootings, and international custody battles. At the same time, we have neglected to take responsibility for our own state of mind. We have used "other people's problems" to avoid addressing our own.

May I ask: 

Did you love yourself and your family today?

Did you comfort your kid when she wet her pants again?

Did you make lunch for your wife even though your favorite team was on television?

Did you go to the PTA meeting because you wanted to be there for the person who needed support?

Did you pray to a higher power before you started your day?

Did you introduce your child to God today because you know that God has answers that maybe you don't?

Did you consider rearranging your finances so you could stay home with your infant until he is a few years old?

Did you stop on the street to ask a person in distress if she needed help?

Did you call for help when you found out about an injustice in your community?

Were you nice to the neighbor you think you hate?

Did you offer to take a neighbor to Alcoholics Anonymous because she reached out for help?

Did you turn off the television because your elderly mother wanted to talk about her accomplishments in her crafts class?

I have been known to spout off about the problems of the world. I have also been known to talk about the need for peace. Neither makes too much of a difference if I am unwilling to look at my own contribution to peace.

We don't need to wait around for the next Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. to get our acts together.

In our call for peace, let us look at what we each can do about it.

Each of us can ask ourselves, "What have I done today in the name of peace?"

Next time we begin to stomp out another frog, perhaps we can ask ourselves what small thing we have done today to address the source -- starting with ourselves.

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