Thoughts about humanity

It's an interesting social phenomenon, that people come online and create a blog or a xanga site, in order to express themselves freely, or create something that shows who they are and what they are about. I don't know why I come on here, but yet it's like there's something in me that drives me to write and to think and to wonder about life. . . .and it's good to know that there are thousands and millions of bloggers (which I sometimes surf) who are attempting to do the same thing.

Tonight, my mind is awash with thoughts of war and hatred. I began reading "Night" by Elie Wiesel while I'm here at work tonight. I could not get past the first 20 pages, because that was all I could handle for tonight. It is an utterly sobering book, which dodges around hope, but then wistfully settles into melancholy.

I can't help but ask: why do humans hate? Why is there a tendency within human nature to pick out our enemies and choose to despise and oppress them? I challenge anyone to think of a society (either today or in history) that did not have some kind of oppression in its annals of history? Our American history is rife with many instances of oppression (whether or not we choose to see them), such as the genocide of native peoples by Columbus, the abuse of Native Americans for hundreds of years, enslavement of Africans during our nation's infancy, racism throughout the years, maltreatment of immigrants, and even now, suspicion of Muslims within our country. What are we so afraid of? Why does the name Communist strike fear into our hearts, rather than desire for understanding? I've been reading quite a bit on Marx for several of my classes lately, and I am finding that I enjoy his ideas and theories quite a lot, and I am beginning to wonder why we fear Marxism so damn much. I know that we in America see Che Guevara as a rebel and communist, but I see him as a dynamic and beautiful individual, who was about the people. Perhaps are we more about bureaucracy and rationalization of society than we are about PEOPLE? What is happening to us in America, and throughout the world? Globalization is not going to be the solution to all of our problems, if anything, I believe it will cause more problems than it solves. Perhaps we are trying to employ solutions that aren't even remotely related to the problems. Why do we not take a holistic view of society, rather than picking out the one or two things that annoy us and focusing on those? My heart grieves for how the Christian community has ostracized the gay and lesbian population of our country. If Jesus were alive today, I believe that he would be spending his time with them (rather than with pious Christians), affirming them as human beings, rather than social outcasts.

Perhaps where we all should start is by reclaiming the idea that every single person is HUMAN. The homeless man who stands on the street two blocks from my home, he is a human being. he people who are being killed or tortured in Sudan, they are real people. The countless hundreds and thousands who have been affected by hurricanes in the past month, they are all valuable individuals. Perhaps if we saw humanity in such a way (instead of people who are faceless and nameless), then maybe we would realize something about how God might see the world. . . . .

Just maybe. . . .