Our Culture of Violence

During my childhood in Shawnee, Oklahoma, an early Saturday afternoon movie was the norm.  Several of us young guys from the neighborhood would go to the Hornbeck Theater and watch a cowboy movie.  The Hornbeck played cowboy movies for kids our age and only early Saturday afternoon.  I think the movie cost me (well, Dad) a dime.  Those western movies featured our heroes: Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Arthur, Roy Rogers, Red Ridder, Lone Ranger, etc.  These were the good guys who always got the bank robbers.  After the movie we would run home, got our play guns, holsters and cowboy hats then we acted out whatever we had been watching.  It was great fun as we played cowboys all over the neighborhood.  I recall those experiences as I watched and read about the horror that happened in Aurora, Colorado, where a young man killed and wounded so many in a theater showing the premiere of the Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises.  What we watch or put into our minds and imaginations, can too easily become reality.  We tend to act out what we watch.  There is too much violence, i.e., shooting, rape, hitting, porn, cursing, war, torture, etc. in our culture and it is readily available for our imaginations via television, movies, Internet, songs, etc.  When we put violence into our minds then violence is more easily acted out.  When we watch or listen to violence our conscience becomes numb and eventually we are no longer even aware of its impact on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, actions, etc.  I pray for the victims in Aurora, Colorado.  I also pray for the daily victims of our culture of violence who probably don't even realize that we are also victims.