Hijacked Grief
Grief is a powerful emotion. And a necessary one.Grief is brought upon by loss, often personal. The more personal the loss, the deeper the grief. Dennis Prager described a Jewish custom surrounding the grieving process, called Shiva. To sit Shiva, one actively grieves for a seven-day period, during which time they do nothing, except receive visitors. According to Mr. Prager (and ancient wisdom) it is imperative to take the time to actively engage the grieving process. Too often, in a rush to normalcy, many try to accelerate the grieving process, thinking that the sooner they get through the grieving process, the quicker they can get back to normal and be happy again.While grief is handled by each one of us personally, and in different ways, there have been times in our past where we have shared a collective, national grief; the JFK assassination and funeral, the Challenger disaster, and others. Immediately following these events, we pulled together, as Americans. We were, for a time one people. Not Democrat, or Republican. Christian, Jew, or Atheist. Neither were we black, or white.Few speeches epitomize the coming together in a common cause, grief, than Ronald Reagans Space Shuttle Challenger televised speech on Jan 28, 1986.Recent tragedies have seen division, where there was once unity. Barack Obama, and Liberal Activists have hijacked grief, and turned it into anger -- for no other (apparent) reason than to advance a political agenda. There calculus -- expansion through division.This tactic can be seen in liberal actions following Gabby Giffords shooting. On hearing the news, for a moment, I grieved. I grieved for Gabby Giffords. I grieved for the other victims that day also. Sadly, that moment was rocked by Social Media liberal activists using the tragedy to attack Republicans generally, and Sarah Palin specifically. My grief, and the grief of countless Americans was hijacked. Stolen. For no other purpose than to score political points against an opponent. That facts didnt support their narrative didnt keep them from hijacking the moment.This act was despicable, but sadly, for Democrats, formative. They appear to have learned that the sum parts of division, is [seemingly] greater than the whole parts of solidarity, and that grief is a strong catalyst to anger.In recent tragedies, where there was opportunity to unite, Barack Obama, Al Sharpton, #BlackLivesMatter, the Media, et al, have hijacked grief and used it to stoke anger, and division. (Baltimore, Charleston, ISIS, Boko Haram, Chattanooga).Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/08/hijacked_grief.html#ixzz3hvMoR8v5 Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
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Hello XX. Well written article. It seems that we will never see eye to eye on political matters, however that aside, I would like to make a few comments.
Grief isuniversively held. No one of us can escape it. We have a Jewish friend who was born in a relocation camp following WWII. His suffering is incomprehensible. His mother was of a delicate constitution, and she died soon after the Nazi's were done with her. Her death left within him a hole which can never be filled. Although I think he loved his father no less, his father became intensively angry. Who amongst us can blame him for that?
As my own family is fractured, I havecompiled my address book to include those friends whom I now consider as my ownfamily. They are the ones that I share my grief with, and they share it with me. I know that my Jewish friend would sit Shiva with me if I suffered a loss. Recently he was ill. He was so ill that he could not even accept soup. So we offered to go out and get for him anything he might need, as he was homebound. We offered to take food to him when he was able to eat. We offered to meet any need he might have.
I don't think he was used to this, but I told him that he was family, and left it at that. He recovered his illness, and we had a long talk after this. Basically, he could not believe that anyone wanted to be his family. However, we have known each other so long that he never doubted what I had told him to be true.
In many older cultures, people just naturally meet up and gather around the grieving person. Entire villages and townships make this a process. It is so healing in a time of need to have the entire town show up.The grieving person is never left along to "tough it out" as is all too common in our culture.
Thank you for writing about this important topic. We need not agree about politics to understand grief. And what you initially said about it struck and important nerve.