There are two issues I feel passionate about that touch our culture every day. The first one is the right-to-life that all of us have. I am an activist and an advocate for life issues. Life begins at conception and is to continue until the giver of life determines the natural end. In 1987, a small pro-life ministry based 45 miles north of Sacramento, California, held the first Life Chain observance as they built America’s first chain through the towns of Yuba City and Marysville, California, according to their website. Last Sunday, across the country there were people who stood for one hour in silent prayer standing up for the unborn in communities throughout North America. Life is valuable and vital, and should be treated with dignity and respect.
Being an advocate for life also causes me to share another passion of my belief system. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Over these many years in my profession, having sat on my side of the desk and listened to stories of spouse and child abuse, my heart has softened for those who are abused and has hardened my heart toward the abusers. One of the things I have learned as an advocate for raising awareness of domestic violence is that there is not one level of society left out when it comes to violence being used against other human beings. Often, the most kept secret about violence is that it covers every level of educational, economic, political, social and even spiritual layers of our culture. There is no place where domestic violence can ever be accepted by me.
Often those who are the victims of violence are so intimidated they suffer alone. Too many times the person who preys upon others does so as a master-bully. We have been seeing stories recently in the media about bullies at schools or neighborhoods, but we also know that the person, who preys upon another, wherever the act occurs, is a coward and a bully. Domestic violence can be inflicted in several ways. There is not always the striking of another person, but the intimidation that occurs as a means of control when a person expresses episodes of rage against someone else. The person, who is the prey of another, soon learns the best way to give in and give up is to keep the predator from going into a fit of rage. That is abusive behavior. There is more than just the need for anger management when a person is controlling another by the use of anger or rage. Over these many years of observing the behavior of the controlling person, it almost always escalates to hitting. The early moments of abuse could be the use of words expressed in anger, but soon, it changes to hitting or even restraining another person until the abuser can force their way on the person being abused. In recent months the media has been filled with stories of murder and mayhem that has been rooted in domestic violence victims. There seems to be more stories, recently, of couples who once stood before a preacher or judge and each pledged their love for the other, but grew apart to the point of violence erupting into the taking of a life.
The majority of the time when the domestic violence spills over into murder or assault, the coward, that is the predator, has to build up strength to commit such a heinous crime with the use of alcohol or some other drug. A person out of control of a situation is persuaded they are superhuman once they have ingested some drug. These domestic cowards must think that once they have inflicted enough pain on the one being abused that they will prove a point. The point they prove is they are cowards and bullies and deserve swift punishment for the abuse and harm they have inflicted on someone else. We know that many times the coward inflicting the harm to someone else is much stronger and bigger than the person they are abusing. The shame of our culture is that we have to force the abused person to jump through too many legal hoops to receive help and many times it is too late when they have been killed by the abusing bully. There can be help available by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1.800.787.3224. Life is vital and valuable, and must be treated with respect and dignity.
Ray Newman: Copyright October, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment