To be a citizen in America in 2017 requires the ability to understand how to deal with the morning after yet another tragedy, crisis, eternal conflict, and the nearly continuous killing and slaughter of our fellow citizens, not a staple of American life. This one was literally unimaginable, it’s almost impossible for me to comprehend how we have come to this.

If we could not imagine it, so many of us – even me – knew it was coming.

We have a government whose officials are sworn to protect us, but who offer us only facile and empty prayers and condolences, things we can generally do for ourselves. These hollow words bounce off us and leave us cold. I wish they at least had the decency to say they won’t do anything to change this awful new reality, a permanent part of our landscape.

Our corporate owned media feasts on gathering hundreds of violent video clips and airing them continuously for days and weeks. Their ratings soar, even as our own emotions and feelings wither and grow numb.

There isn’t a psychologist or therapist on the earth who believes it is healthy see those graphic and brutal films hundreds, if not thousands of times. They know, as we do it, it simply deadens our hearts and souls. I don’t like to tell people what to do, but don’t watch them. We are afraid of so many things, this one ought to be at the top of the list.

These videos are, literally, dehumanizing. We grieve and pray for a day or two, and then move on to the next crisis or distraction.  We can’t stay focused on anything for long, even the mass killing of innocents. Does anyone really need to see several hundred smart phone recordings of innocent people being slaughtered?

It is not possible to escape these images and live in our world. I now know all I need to know about how many people died and in what way they perished or were wounded. I don’t need to watch any more, and I won’t.

I don’t want to run from what happened, but I don’t need to see it over and over again either, especially when the purpose is not to informus or seek solutions,  but draw in more viewers and make more money. That’s not news, it’s vampirism.

It’s good to be reminded that corporate media is making billions of dollars off of our tragedies, they are the prophets of a new doomsday culture, fomenting hopelessness and division and vengeance.

They are turning millions of us into ghouls and tragedy addicts. They are not offering us a public service, just a boon to stockholders.

Yesterday, I went to the Mansion and helped a few people. I felt better, I felt alive, I was not numb or deadened. I sat alone, I walked in the woods. I came back to myself. I loved the simplicity and openness of the residents, they filled my heart with feeling. They are an antidote to the wider world.

Those feelings kept the tragedy alive for me without wallowing in it, and the inevitable and paralyzing arguments that follow. So much better to commit small acts of great kindness, so healing and affirming. I’ll do it again today.

In my experience, there is usually one story or statistic that stands out for me, and that symbolizes the awful happening, without sucking me into it like a sinkhole.

For me, it was this statistic, reported by the New York Times and several other publications on Monday:

In the 477 days since a gunman killed 49 people in an Orlando nightclub, there have been 521 mass shootings in America that have resulted in the deaths of 585 people and 2,156 injuries requiring hospitalization.

We refuse to call this terrorism, but feel free to demonize  the innocent refugees and immigrants, and abandon them to our awful fate while our elective officials and representatives quote scripture and run and hide. It seems it is not the terrorism from without we really have to fear. Can we put that wall around each one of us?

I’m not sure how I am supposed to feel about all of that, I do wake up sometimes wondering what happened to my country, where it went. How we can rescue ourselves from our leaders. But this week, better to think small.

Today, I will continue to do things that allow me to feel, while moving away from the festering store that forms such an awful cloud around us.

I am grateful for my work with refugees and at the Mansion, and for this blog, and my photos and writing. And for Gus, taking his first ride around on Fanny’s back.

They will all help keep my soul alive.