Okinawa Day 5: The Wet Dry Run

So, being the professional desk jockey that I am, I am what one might call "not in shape." Certainly not in bicycle touring shape.  Be that as it may, I've never let being out of shape stop me from a good time.  But climbing that Shuri hill (by accident) on Wednesday put the fear of sloth into me.  I started to think that maybe doing 250 miles in 5 days was a bad idea.

But, I got a little faith in my legs back on Thursday by tooling around Naha and Shuri, so today (Friday), I thought I would put my legs to the test and do a 40 miler with more panniers on the bike.  Not a full load, but about 2/3 full.  So, I started in Nishihara to Yonabaru to Haebaru to Itoman to Gushikami to Tamagusuku to Chinen, to Sashiki to Yonabaru and back to Nishihara. It took me exactly 5 hours to complete, and I partook of 3 necessary kyukeis, and 2 unecessary kyukeis (one of which as lunch, the other at a righteous and shaded viewpoint of the ocean).  Lots of hills, so stop snickering about 40 miles being a test.  It was fairly tough.

Along the way, I got torched again by the sun.  I applied copious amounts of sun screen this time, but the 5 gallons of sweat coming out of every pore washed that away in no time.  I drank about 6 or 7 bottles of water or sports drink.  The soda machines are everywhere (and, for those who haven't been to Japan, "everywhere" is not an exaggeration), and they all sell a Japanese version of Gatorade known as Aquarius.  So, each of my three water bottles were refilled a time or two.  And moments later, most of that liquid intake dripped itself out of my pores onto the streets of southern Okinawa.

You think I kid.  I josh you not. The temps were mere mid-80s, but with the humidity, it had a heat index of 104 at the time I checked.  I saw many familiar sites as I went.  The apartment I lived in for several months, the new Itoman church building, the old Itoman church building, the Shimai apartment, some of the old routes to cross the island from the west side to the east side, and yes, some of those hills too.  How on earth I climbed those so often and so quickly on a mountain bike is beyond me.

I chatted with a few people along the way.  An Oba (old lady), a dude selling some wares at a tourist site I checked out, and, of course, the lady in the Katsu shop that I stopped in again at to have lunch (katsu curry).  And, got back just in time to get with the kids and wife to head down to the beach in Nishihara.  Ahhhhhh.....

My rides next week average 50 miles a day, Monday through Friday.  The way I figure, each day will only include a partial day of cycling, the rest of which will have to struggle through by swilling acquarius, swimming in tropical waters, and looking for the nearest oba store that sells Japan's righteous bread.

It'll be rough.

Okinawa Day 4: To Poncho or Not To Poncho

That was the question many years ago when I first arrived in Okinawa.  I was green, and unschooled in the ways of the Okinawan climate.  A few Mormon missionaries get assigned to serve in areas that include special packing instructions.  Mine, curiously, recommended I pack a poncho (not an overcoat).

So, sometime during my first week on the island the rain clouds came, and I put my poncho on. A few minutes later, I realized the conundrum faced by anyone on a bike in Okinawa.  If you wear some sort of waterproof barrier, you'll be wet from sweat.  If you don't, you'll be wet from rain.  Either way, you'll be wet, but with rain, at least, you don't stink as much.

As I flew down the hill on my bike (those many years ago), the poncho flapped so violently behind me that it ripped off and faded into memory, I really didn't think much of it because I already knew I'd never wear one again.  So, why on earth did I pack my gore-tex cycling jacket for this trip?

I don't know, but I had it stuffed in one of my panniers today as I climbed the Shuri hill (the easier route, this time), and blitzed back down the other side through Higashi to the back door of the Heiwa Dori shotens.  It dripped throughout the day, and when it got a bit heavy, I just ducked under the nearest awning and waited it out.  But, I think I came out of my ride today dryer than I did yesterday.  Today it was rain, yesterday it was sweat.

So, to the food.  Had some Okinawa Soba today on Kokusai dori.  That's where my wife and kids and I met up, and we had a good time there.  The Soba was righteous, of course, so I was quite pleased with that.  Earlier, while waiting for the fam to find me, I grabbed some sort of berry/chocolate cruller donut creation from Mos Burger.  The burger joint with the worst name ever came up with something pretty good.

Today also included some good wandering time through Shuri, Higashi, and Naha proper.  The Shuri apartment (lo, these many years later) appears to have been vacated by the missionaries.  Will have to look into that.  The hole in the wall (literally, just a closet) of a bike repair shop just down the road from the Okii Mart in Shuri where I got my chain replaced by a hammer swinging blind man (at no charge) is also gone (the Okii Mart, by the way, is now a Kanehide).  The building is gone too, I think, to make room for a widened road.  The Miwa Mansion (the name of the Higashi Apartment, and also, coincidentally, name of my wife - Miwa, not Mansion) is still there, and I also, almost by use of the Force (but aided a skosh by my iphone's GPS) found the back door to Heiwa Dori.

All good things.  So, too, was swinging by the Bridgestone shop on 58, and it's little annex a few blocks off the highway (which is a better shop than the main one).  Sogenji is still there, and so is the miracle behind it.

So, today was a nice contrast to yesterday.  Wet and a little cool.

Okinawa Day 3: Where the Streets Have No Name

Making a wrong turn in Okinawa can be a brutal and unforgiving mistake...when you're on a bike.  There are very few "through streets" that connect one neighborhood to the next, and one community to the next.  And none of them have names or distinguishing features (i.e. they are not wider than the narrow neighborhood roads, and they often don't have lights.  They look the same.).

I never served in Nishihara or Yonabaru.  I went on splits down there ("down" from Shuri), but always more or less followed someone else around.  But since the in-laws live in Nishihara, I have to learn my way around a little.

The plan was for me to run an errand in Haebaru, then meet with the wife and kids at a park built around a beach in Nishihara, Agarizaki-cho.  I knew roughly where the park was, and didn't have any trouble finding it, but finding the family was a bit more difficult.  (How dependent have we become on cell phones?).  So, I sat there for an hour, playing with my Goal Zero solar phone charger (I highly recommend this).

It is, at this point, that I must confess that I actually did have a smartphone with me, and a pocket hotspot, and as such had full access to GPS capabilities.  Which either proves the point that the road system in Okinawa is completely incomprehensible...or I'm a complete navigational  moron.

So, I downloaded a few songs, updated my facebook status, and did various time killing activities until it was obvious that I missed them, somehow.  Perhaps they went to a different park somewhere else.  Who knows?  I was hungry, so I went to a little dive on 329 (one of the few roads that has a name/number) kiddie corner from the Yonabaru McDonalds and got some katsu curry.  A heaping helping of it.  For just a 5 hyaku.  I may have to go back.  

Not only because the food was remarkably good and cheap, but also because I like being the only gaijin in any place - walking with my kids in my in-law's neighborhood, or hanging out in a katsu shop that no gaijin has any business being in.  There's something very satisfying about being the outsider, knowing the inside game (how to order from the meal ticket machine, being able to shaberu with the cook, etc.).

Fully charged with some rib-sticking man food, I hopped on my donkey of a bike and started peddling for home.  And this is where I made my wrong turn.  There's a fork off a main'ish road that I was looking for to get me on the right path back home, and I mistook the fork in the road. Long story short, I ended up in Shuri/Urasoe next to Ryudai, which, for those of you who are familiar, is the most brutal and unforgiving option to get up to Shuri.  Upon return to home after the detour, I pulled up google maps on the computer to see how I went off course...and much to my dismay, I noticed that at one point I was less than 0.5 miles away from my home and didn't know it.  I continued to the route I did know, and went through Shuri, past the Shuri apartment, and back down the hill.

I was totally spent.  But, after several hours of laying around and recovering, I'm feeling much better...but for the righteous bicycler's tan/burn that I got on my arms and legs.  Ouch!  

Sunscreen next time.

Okinawa Day 2

So, we went to Gyokyusendo.  These days it is known as Okinawa World, a full blown theme park complete with bus loads of obnoxious tourists.  I won't say which country these obnoxious folks were from, lest I be accused at some point of being prejudiced, but in all of my days of interacting with people from other cultures, I have never been as obnoxiously inconvenienced by folks like this before.  They were...obnoxious.

(Partly because the Okinawans as a people are very meek and gentle, and partly because I want to represent my home country well, I try to go out of my way to not be the "ugly, loud American."  Well, my fellow Americans, you no longer need to worry about being the tourist everyone else hates.  Because these folks...wow.  It's as if they went out of their way to be obnoxious.)

Anyhoo...for all of you animal rights activists out there, they've discontinued the Cobra vs. Mongoose fights at the snake park (part of Okinawa World).  I'm okay with that.  Seemed a bit cruel to me, even when I was an ugly American.  We spent most of our time going through the caves, then wrapped up our time by watching an Eisa demonstration.

The bike was an ongoing concern for me throughout the day.  It found its way to Tokyo, but the folks at the airline were very non-committal about whether or not there would be room on the plane from Tokyo to Okinawa.  It was a good thing that my wife was talking to them, because I probably would have lost my patience with the absurdity of the situation.

It did arrive late at night, and I picked it up at the airport, went about assembling it, and dumped the box in my father-in-law's car.  A few notes from that ride: I should have tried to take it on the Monorail, and ridden that up to Shuri, leaving me a breezy ride downhill to the house.  I didn't.  I rode through Naha (down Kokusai Dori - which would have been a lot more amusing if I wasn't hustling so much), up the brutal hill known as Shuri.

My light for my bike was low on juice, much to my surprise.  So, the only function that worked was the flashing light.  This is good in the city, where the function of a bike light is more to be seen, than to see.  But not so good in those rural parts (the last leg of my ride) where there are no street lights, very few cars, and, in this case, a fast ride down a steep hill.  Now you see the road, now you don't see the road.  Worse than that, because of the blindingly bright bursts of light, my eyes just couldn't adjust very well, so I was more or less blind for that part of the ride.

Lastly, my rear fender was rubbing my tire.  I don't know if it was because I had just assembled my bike in the dark, and was now riding that through town with little to no light, but I had the feeling that my bike just wasn't...tight.  As if everything was just a little loose.  But, alas, I made it back to the house, didn't get lost, and committed to take most of the bike apart the next morning and reassemble it in proper light, taking my time.  I felt like I got away with one with that night ride.

Okinawa Part 2

It's wet here.  Stepping outside the automatic doors a the airport to get to my father-in-law's car felt a bit like stepping into a sauna.  And I'm not overstating this either.  A wave of mist-like moisture hit me.  The temperature was not all that hot, but the moisture was definitely there.

Now, for those of you who are familiar with my trip plans, you may be wondering why a car was involved in my airport routine to begin with.  In short, someone at United Airlines baggage handling in O'Hare thought not to put my bike on my connecting flight to Tokyo.  It took me some time to sort that out in customs at Narita, and even now, I'm not all that certain what's going to happen next.  It very well could be on today's plane from Chicago to Tokyo, but I can't confirm that until the folks at United's customer service desk here in Japan wake up.

So, we'll see, here, in a few minutes whether or not the bike is on its way, and whether or not it will arrive in Okinawa tonight, to be delivered to my parents-in-law's home tomorrow morning.  If so, I will put it back together, and start peddling around a bit.

Many of you may recall that this is my second time back to Okinawa since my LDS mission back in the 90s.  The last time I came here (about 4 years ago) it was winter, and much less humid.  I also got an opportunity to thoroughly revisit most of my mission sites.  Old apartments, church buildings, and notable McDonalds locations.  So, as we cruised from the airport to home last night, I felt a distinction between this visit and last.  This one is more...routine.  If that's the word.

My urge is not to go to all of those places.  This time, I want to cycle to places - grocery store, bike shops, surf shops, soda machines, etc.  Really, it doesn't matter where I go.  I just want to navigate on my bike all over the island.  I want to spend time really embracing the mundane, cruising around in the neighborhoods, catching plenty of good whiffs of the odor wafting from the drainage systems along the sides of the roads.  I want to cycle tour around the island,  as well, hugging the coastline as I go.  That will be next week.  This week, my plan is to spend time with the wife and kids, the in-laws, and peddle around just enough to warm my legs up for next week, make sure I put my bike back together correctly, and perhaps meet my family at various parks and places that they plan on going to this week.

That's assuming, of course, I actually get my bike.

The Myths of Marriage and Kids

Five years, one month, and five days ago, I met my wife.  It has been four years, three months, and 28 days since I asked her to marry me.  And it has been 4 years to this day since she and I hitched our wagons together for the long haul.

Since the day I got engaged, friends would come up to me (married friends) and offer hearty congratulations, then add, "now, when you get married, things are going to change."  I got this heads up from many people (mostly guys) who I think were earnestly trying to give me some important insights into married life that I would find valuable.

But I just didn't understand what they meant by it.  "What is going to change?  What are you talking about?" I'd ask.  They'd persist.  "Trust me, things will change.  Don't worry about it.  Just, y'know, be prepared for it."

I'd persist: "what are you talking about?  Give me something specific to work with here.  What?  Do you mean things like toilet seats and toothpaste caps?  Help me out here."  But they never clarified.  They just left it hanging out there that some sort of mysterious change would happen when we got married.

MYTH #1: "When you get married, things are going to change."  

They do not.  Or, perhaps, things don't have to change.

I often remarked to my girlfriend/fiance back in those stages of our relationship that going to Safeway or Fred Meyer felt like a date to me because I always had such fun with her no matter what we were doing.  (And stop snickering out there, people.  We actually went out on real dates all the time.)

And as I was driving around today with my beloved wife (and kids in the back seat), I thought back to those times and happily declared to my wife out of the blue "I still think going to Safeway feels like a date!"  I still do have that much fun with her no matter what we're doing.  I feel good.  I feel happy with her.

As for those mythical changes that are supposed to occur, they just never did.  She did not transform into a girl with some sort of hidden personality once we got married.  She was who she was when we were dating, engaged, and married.  Nothing has really changed, except that my appreciation of her has grown with time.  Hopefully, I'm still the guy she said "yes" to back then.  Wiser, more experienced, but the same guy.

I think it has been very helpful in our relationship that when we started dating, she sort knew who she was, and I sorta knew who I was.  We more or less had our own selves figured out.  So, when we started dating, I, for example, didn't have a moving target in her to figure out.  She was who she was, she knew herself, and that made it easy for me to figure her out.  In fact, I really don't think I had to figure her out.  Who she was, was (and is) obvious.  I hope and think the same can be said for me.

So, there's no moving target, no shifting fault lines.  No mysterious changes once it's "too late to back out."

MYTH #2: "You'll have arguments.  Don't worry about it, every couple has them."

This one has always bothered me.  Long before I got married, even long before I was remotely interested in getting married, I thought marriage shouldn't be that way.  But it has been the universal refrain from anyone and everyone I heard comment on the subject - whether or not I was involved in the conversation.  So universal, in fact, that I just assumed that it must be my willful ignorance that prevented me from accepting the universal truth that all couples argue.

But I continued to chaffe at that apparent truth.

Then I heard a leader in my church give a speech on the hazards of anger.  He talked about marriage and divorce, and identified divorce as the bitter fruit of anger.  He then added that he had been married 67 years to his wife (who had passed away a few years prior to the speech), and he had never had a quarrel with her.

When I heard that, I thought "Ah hah!  I knew it could be done."

Now call me inexperienced at only 4 years of marriage.  Fair enough.  But I believe the trend my wife and I have started is more than just luck.  I believe it to be a pattern, the rule, and not the exception.  We have not had a quarrel yet.  Either I've held my tongue, or she has.  But neither of us have let the other have it, nor do I think either of us has wanted to.

When she's passionate about something, I tend not to be.  When I'm passionate about something, she's generally not that interested.  There have only been a few occasions I can think of that we've had differing opinions on a matter, and we both felt strongly about it.  What did we do?  We did nothing.  We sat on it.  We let things play out and decidedly chose not to force a decision.  And things have always worked themselves out.

I recall being a best man at a buddy's wedding, many years before I got married.  When the time came to offer the toast, a small wave of panic came over me because I hadn't given it any thought.  But there I was, glass in hand, and blurted out: "look after your spouse's wants and needs before your own, and things will work out fine."  I couldn't believe that came out of my mouth, because I had never considered those thoughts before.  But it stuck with me ever since.  And it is how, I think, my wife and I have been able to go 4 years without arguing.

MYTH #3: Once you have kids, you no longer have a life.

I don't put quotes around that one because no one has explicitly said that.  No one (with kids) will actually say that kids crush any sense of liberty, freedom, and fun in your life.  But I've heard it implied many times over.  With facial expressions, tones of voice, knowing looks, and even words that come close.

Now, the flip side of that perspective is that you absolutely can have a life with kids by ignoring the fact that you have kids.  Dump them on your spouse and go hang out with the guys all the time.  I don't believe in that one either.

As with most things in life, the happy place I've found is in the middle.  I like to camp, cycle, hike, and fiddle with my yard, house, and other minor home improvement projects.  So, I let my kids join me.  Initially, our bike rides are very short.  The camping is in the tent set up in the living room, then the back yard, and this summer, we'll do some car camping, with perhaps a hike in camp out as well.  We ease them into it.  My boy has limited hose privileges now, but they're expanding as we go.

I like to go to movies too.  In fact, my wife an I loved going to the movies.  But, we don't do that yet.  We think its too much for a toddler or infant.  We put the kids to sleep and rent a Red Box.  That's the compromise for now.  But, we can still do what we want (have a life, enjoy a little freedom, whatever) in smaller doses.  And as time goes on, in even greater doses.

MYTH #4: "Kids are germ factories, and will get you sick."

Actually, that one is true.

I was invincible before kids.  Only periodically got the sniffles.  Now I get a new bug every 3-4 weeks. It's brutal.

In sum, happy wife, happy life.  I take care of her, and she takes better care of me.  She rocks, and I couldn't be happier with her riding shotgun with me through life and parenthood.

The Gun Debate

Alright, the dust has settled a little. Now, let’s chat with rational heads and hearts about this issue. When it comes to gun control, this is always the first thing that comes to my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbHH5xZcVvQ.

What bothers me about this debate/argument (I dare not say “discussion”, because not a whole lot of that seems to be happening), is that it is frequently cast in absolutes. “Guns are the problem! Take them away!” Or, “More guns makes for a safer society! It’s Hollywood’s fault!” Et cetera, et cetera.

As with most things in life (and many rational folks know this), I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. So, let’s toss out the varying elements to this discussion, and pick them apart one at a time:

The Constitution: for many, this is where this debate begins and ends. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Now, I’m not a Supreme Court scholar, nor am I one who follows closely the various Court decisions and interpretations of what that means. But I recall that the Courts have upheld a few things: that militia means average citizens, not just the national guard, and that people have the right to keep arms (e.g. Washington, DC gun ban being over turned). Again, not being one who follows closely court cases on the 2nd Amendment, I wonder if it has specifically addressed the “bear arms” part. I would think that is referring to the ability to carry concealed…but I’m not sure on that.

However, as I observe, this right is not an unlimited right. There are limitations to it, as with other Constitutional rights (e.g. First Amendment, you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater, etc.). With guns, you’re not allowed to keep or bear arms if you’re a convicted felon or if your mental stability is determined to be lacking. So there are limitations on this right, and I think they are reasonable. Indeed, I am grateful for those two limitations in particular.

The question in this variable (the Constitutional right to bear arms) is how many limitations are too many limitations? When do we cross the Constitutional line? Purists, I imagine, will say any infringement (including the two limitations noted above) crosses the line. Others, I would imagine, would want more.

My opinion? I think the limitations in place are reasonable. As a citizen, I don’t want people who have either displayed gross irresponsibility (felons) or an inability to be responsible (mental stability) to have access to firearms. (Nor do I want them, parenthetically, to have access to cross bows, large quantities of fertilizer and ammonia, etc., but we’re talking about guns, here, and we’ll just leave that alone for now). Should there be more categories of folks or crimes or levels of mental instability included in the list of limitations? Perhaps. Let’s hear them in the public square, and discuss them.

Guns: Is the accessibility of guns a problem? Are there too many guns or too many types of guns out there, and does this ease of accessibility create a public safety hazard? It depends, I think.

Responsible gun owners, I think, secure their guns. They don’t let anyone else get a hold of them, but themselves. They either have them in a safe, on their person, or stowed away somewhere relatively safe and secure. Then what do we do with those folks who aren’t responsible gun owners, who leave their guns lying around for kids or dirtbags to get their hands on? I think they are just as responsible as the folks who use the guns illegally. Accomplices, if you will. Throw them in jail for the length of time the person who actually pulled the trigger. Or at least a substantial part of that prison term. Details can be worked out, but the punishment for being an irresponsible gun owner (and that irresponsibility leading to a gun crime) should be severe.

Which leads me to another subset of this bullet (pardon the pun): If someone wants to kill people and doesn’t have a gun, they’ll find another way of doing it. That’s the rhetorical point many gun supporters make. And there is some validity to it. But the thing that separates guns from other ways of killing is that guns are: a) easy to use (in general); and b) can harm a lot of people in a short amount of time. Everyone knows how to use a gun. Four year-olds know how to use guns. Aim and pull (yes, I know, many guns have safety mechanisms, etc., but most people can figure those out). A really motivated killer can go on-line and figure out how to make a bomb, but then they’ve gotta gather the bomb making ingredients from a variety of sources, figure out a triggering method, sneak into the building plant the bomb, and then detonate it while off-site. All of that times time, effort, some level of intelligence, a lot of luck in not getting caught in the process, etc. With a gun, you don’t have to make it, you don’t have to sneak around ingredients, plant it, arm it, etc. You just get the gun, and walk into the nearest office building, school yard, or quicky mart, and you’re there.

The ease of use and efficiency of use is what makes guns so distinct and potentially dangerous, and makes moot (in my opinion) the rhetorical argument I hear so often that a killer will find another way.

Types of guns: do we need “military-style assault weapons” (whatever that means)? Do we need Ferraris (for the record, I think we need Ferraris)? Do we need suits of armor, do we really any host of things people like to collect that could potentially be used to harm someone else? More than those things, do we really need porn on the computers at the library? Guns destroy the body, but porn rots the soul. But the First Amendment protects porn, and the Second Amendment protects guns.

As a sidebar, this brings me back to a quote that I think cannot be read too often in the American experience: "Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the councils of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."

In other words, we keep the rights so long as we are responsible with them.

Mental Health: Do we really need to talk about this one? Can everyone agree there are some folks out there who simply don’t have the mental capacity to understand what they are doing? What it really means to point a gun at another human being and pull the trigger? The tragedy associated with all of that? I think we can.

So how do we handle folks who are dangerous to themselves and to others? Do we make it easy to take away their freedoms and “incarcerate” them in a mental treatment facility? How do we manage that issue (I ask in exasperation)? I am inclined to be slow to take freedoms away from any innocent (innocent, in that they don’t have the capacity to make informed decisions for themselves) soul. I tend to believe people are responsible for the portion of intelligence given them (although, willful ignorance is no excuse). Call it belief in the parable of the talents, or call it by some other philosophical name. I just have a hard time punishing someone with the loss of their freedoms if they just aren’t accountable for their actions.

On the other hand, among our government’s first responsibilities are to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility (I translate that to meaning peace and safety). In order to accomplish that, it is hard to justify allowing the proverbial ticking time bombs to walk the streets until they explode. Striking the right balance on mental health is a tough one for me.

But there is a subset to this topic that leads me to my next topic….

Popular Culture (a.k.a. Hollywood / video game industry): Enter the chicken and the egg. The purveyors of violent material into our culture claim that they are only providing the public what they are asking for. It’s hard to deny that claim since we seem to eat it up to the tune of billions of dollars every year. On the other hand, there are quite a few consumers who reject that material, and abhor the reality that they can’t turn on their television at anytime of the day and realistically expect to find genuinely G-rated material for themselves or their kids to watch.

When I hear the back and forth between the entertainment industry and various groups (gun groups among them) who blame the entertainment industry, three statements come to mind:

• Lincoln referenced a New Testament scripture in his second inaugural address: "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." I agree with this.
• The inimitable Peggy Noonan recently wrote: "Violence is different, I said, because there are unstable people among us, and they are less defended against dark cultural messages. The borders of the minds of the unstable are more porous. They let the darkness in. You can go to a horror movie and be entertained or amused: “This is scary, I love getting scared, and I love it because I know it isn’t real.” But the unstable are not entertained by darkness. They let it in. They are inspired by it. Sometimes they start to live in the movie in their heads. “I am the Joker,” the shooter is reported to have told the Aurora police."
• Said Director Ang Lee: “I think we should use restraint. You should have the freedom to create whatever is in your mind. Of course, you pay the price for that.”
• “If you don’t want to watch it, turn it off.” To those who say this, I say you are correct in most cases. Just like Ms. Noonan’s comments about scary movies are okay for most people. But there are plenty of folks out there for whom it is not as easy as turning it off. And with those people in mind, we should consider Mr. Lee’s comments about paying the price.

So this is a multi-headed beast. The laws of our land, the guns in our hands, the health of our minds and souls, and the world around us who dangle violence out in front of us like it is an tantalizing piece food. If we attack one element without addressing the others, I’m convinced we’ll fail.

Ultimately, I think we can address all of them balancing justice with mercy and still fall short if we don’t address the spiritual deficiencies of our own hearts. (And while there are many paths to spiritual stability – religion among them – any number of spiritual paths can help on this one.) As we fail to practice the golden rule (Matthew 7:12 "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.") we erode our own abilities to act responsibly. And for those who are so mentally ill that they never were able to act responsibly, we fail them too, as we are not equipped to address their needs per the golden rule.