I think a lot. I had a therapist once who told me I spend too much time inside my head. (I know you're thinking, gee -- I KNEW she'd been to therapy.) So, trying to practice that advice, I really do try to live in the moment and not just THINK about everything. But I cannot help it sometimes. It is my nature. It is a huge part of my job and it is a large chunk of what makes me who I am.
Thoughts, perhaps random, perhaps not:
1. What is the value of a life? What is the worth of one person's life over another person's? How can we measure, trade or compensate anyone for what has been lost? Or for what is being given? Yet, many people are asked every day to perform this thankless task. We ask juries this question when a wrongful death case is presented. Tribes have negotiated deals for millenia when harm came to one of its members and reparations were sought, or dowries given or prisoners ransomed -- or exchanged.
2. Not everything presented in the media is true. (I know. You're surprised.) Sometimes it may be the result of a mistake or an accident, such as the wrong picture next to the headline. Occasionally, it may be the agenda of a particular individual taking advantage of a situation in which other important information cannot be included for perfectly good reasons, such as attorney-client privilege (like me, the attorney, who cannot divulge a client's communications ... period) or other ethical codes under which one works. Or there may be top-secret, classified information that cannot and should not be divulged, no matter how badly the public clamors to know. How do I know of these things? Because I've been there -- at least on the attorney-client and ethics code end of things. I've seen the mistakes (and falsifications), but I simply cannot correct them. It would be a breach of my duty.
3. Should we be consistent in our beliefs about the value of life? A friend of mine once pointed out that at least he was consistent in his beliefs concerning abortion and capital punishment. He opposed both. If God loves each person the same and values no human above another, what does that say about the approach we should take? If God is the ultimate judge, why are we so quick to rush to judgment about what someone else may or may not have done? Especially someone whom we have never met, someone whose family is not ours, and whose business has little to do with our daily affairs?
4. Is it harder to get our own lives in order than it is to point the finger at others? I ask this question simply because I did spend so much time in therapy. I remember how hard it was doing all that work, looking inward, asking myself all those questions. Getting one's proverbial stuff together is not easy. It requires revisiting the past and trying to figure out what happened and why we reacted (translate: felt) the way we did. Feelings are hard. Most of the time we've covered a lot of that garbage up. And sometimes, sometimes, there are many miles that have been re-paved so many times, that digging through all those layers is darn near impossible. We did it that way on purpose. It is our protective coating. Designed to seal away the past, so far and so secure as to be impenetrable.
But there is danger in that approach. The danger is being out of touch. For when we become out of touch with our true, authentic self, we are out of touch with everyone else. And we are also out of touch with our Maker. We cannot know anyone truly until we know ourselves. And it is a lifelong journey. Truly.
