David Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene at Columbine High School in 1999 after the tragic actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left thirteen dead.
In researching the terror of the Columbine shooting, Cullen discovered what he called a “revelation” in Dylan Klebold’s journal. Reflecting on last Friday’s terrible events in Aurora, Colorado, Cullen sought help in Klebold’s journal in comprehending the actions of James Holmes in an Aurora movie theatre where he killed 12 people and injured 58 others. In Klebold’s journal Cullen found,
Ten pages are consumed with drawings of giant fluffy hearts. Some fill entire pages, others dance about in happy clusters, with “I LOVE YOU” stenciled across. He was ferociously angry. He had one primary target for his anger. Not jocks, but himself. What a loathsome creature he found himself. No friends, no love, not a soul who cared about him or what became of his miserable life. None of that is objectively true. But that’s what he saw.
It’s a common high school malady, taken to extremes. Psychologists have a simple term for this state: depression. That surprises a lot of people. Depressives look sad, but that is the view from the outside. Of course they’re sad; they’ve probably gone their entire day getting berated relentlessly, by the single person in the world whose opinion they hold most dear — themselves.
Self-hatred is a vicious enemy. It consumes the soul of its perpetrator/victim and inevitably eventually turns outward to destroy in word or deed, the lives of unsuspecting victims.
We cannot afford the luxury of nuturing for even one moment the tinniest seeds of self-loathing. The attitudes we foster within ourselves, towards ourselves will always manifest in external action, for good or ill.
Jesus said,
out of the heart come evil intentions (Matthew 15:19)
Violence starts in the heart. Gun control is undoubtedly a good thing and would almost certainly curtail some of the violence that is so prevalent in countries where killing tools are abundantly accessible. But, in the end, the problem of violence will only be addressed with heart surgery. The heart surgery we require is the kind of complete transplant provided by the choice to surrender our lives to the healing power of love.
Like Dylan Klebold, we all have within us the capacity for love and the capacity for terrible violence. We choose many times every day whether we will live from our broken violent heart, or from our transformed and life-giving heart. The results of our choice will lead to a world that is more broken, or moving towards greater wholeness.
If there could ever be any positive outcome from the senseless actions of James Holmes in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado on Friday July 20, 2012 it would be if I allow his actions to hold a mirror up to my own life. In that mirror I will see the violence in my own life. I will behold the violent thoughts to which I am prone, the negative tone of voice, the cutting comment that so frequently slips from my lips.
The willingness to see myself as I truly am is the beginning of the journey to a renewed heart. A renewed heart is the only path to a more gentle world.
In A Spacious Place 
5 comments
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July 23, 2012 at 7:45 am
brokenstones
It is ridiculous that this sort of thing happens year after year in the States and we all wonder…:why?
THAT question and your post is appropriate for somewhere like Norway or Australia or Holland..but in the States it is purely and simply the access to guns that accounts for these ‘tragedies. These poor people would not have the opportunity to act out their pain in the numbers they have, if not for some stupid interpretation of freedom.
The ONLY answer that the USA ought to get from anyone is: Guns.
We are expected to sympathise year after year and yet Americans themselves will not take the first step to avoid these incidents.
When I read that article yesterday I thought…and this is news?
Does it take a rocket scientist to figure out the latent power of depression?…the potential power of anger turned inward? at some point in someone that anger will no longer be able to be contained within one being. ….and most will go jump off a bridge or punch something. In the states they have guns…TWO shotguns??!!!
Of course the cure for violence happens in the heart….but there is something very sick about a society enabling the perpetuation of violence and then asking…”why?”…and worse: “poor us”.
OK..sure then, USA, if you are so convinced that your freedom and safety depends on guns, then fine…but then…please spare us the “poor us” and the “whys” and the heartache and justifications when this sort of thing happens within your borders…You want guns? Lots of them? Then you have to understand that there is a cost with that. Contrary to popular belief, having the right to bear arms does not come for free.
For my part… until the USA gets it’s head together and has a civilised plan for guns I will be saving my sympathy for Norway.
July 23, 2012 at 8:02 am
John
I like what you have to say here – human beings all have the potential for violence, as the genocides and other related events of the last one hundred years have shown us.
I have a feeling though that mental illness played a role with the killer in Colorado, though we don’t know enough about him to say yet. The need for greater gun control in the United States is also an absolutely unavoidable fact as well.
July 23, 2012 at 8:11 am
Dave
Love your neighbour as yourself …. but if you hate yourself? And what will you do unto others….?
July 23, 2012 at 8:44 am
lindsay
.
.
.
.
You have a choice
When you hear my name
And your blood starts to boil
When your acid reflux,
burns acrid on your skin
with knee-jerk anger
and every grievance
You can imagine ..
Know this …
I’m not your guilty conscience.
When you look in the eyes
of your little ones
And you fight knowing
Your sold them out
for a penny
and whispered promises
When everything yells in you
anger and hate
and the sick smell of baby’s milk
Threatens to smother you …
Know this …
For some crazy reason
They still love you.
When year after year
Your find reasons to hate,
When any excuse triggers
putrid, slimy, festering ooze,
When you tell yourself stories
You know are not true,
When you choose to attack,
Before others attack you …
Know this …
When you hurt me, you hurt your self
and I want you to stop.
When you seek to find yourself,
stamping out your own love
with spiked claws,
dramatically gouging out
your own flesh-and-blood,
scrambling
to bolster
your own
failing
frail bubble
ego…
Know this …
It doesn’t have to be this way,
You have a choice …
July 24, 2012 at 6:04 pm
John
By the way, I just read an AFP news article reporting that gun sales in Colorado are up 41% since the movie theatre shooting, as are requests for permits to legally carry a concealed weapon.