Paula, that's a really good insight. We used to identify individualistic over-emphasis as a contradiction. But perhaps it's really the de-emphasis of community that we need to focus on. Randy Sent from my iPhone On Dec 17, 2012, at 7:16 AM, Paula Philbrook <paula.philbrook@gmail.com> wrote:

Sufficient unto the day is the contradiction there of. . . .

I have carried this phrase in my head since Town Meeting days. What is the contradiction? In the Fifth City process we identified the VICTIM IMAGE as the underlying spirit problem or contraction, has that changed in our life times?

Daughter, Rebekah, writes and is the content editor of Dictionary.com. They selected bluster as the word of the year for 2012. (follow this link if you want to read about it- http://hotword.dictionary.com/bluster/) In the article, she says you cannot solve a problem until you articulate it. Is that right?

The culture of drugs, guns, domestic violence, excess consumption, and bullying, all point to a similar underlying contradiction-deep personal isolation coupled with a vacuum or absence of community has produced a mindset of "super" power individuals. The individual is more important than the whole.

The victim image was from the Freedom section of RSI, I keep thinking this contradiction is related to the last section, the CHURCH. There is no WE.

Paula

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melody Beattie

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I like what Paula said. Most intelligent response I've seen yet. Individualism and individual rights has become a smoke screen for the kind of anarchy that says "I" am beyond the law. It is certainly one of the major elements of this malaise. Alienation, marginalization and a culture of opposition and aggressive retribution makes a very unstable mixture. There is a complex and deeply twisted story operating that, I believe, is a form of escape from the existential questions related to being together we are facing around the planet. I certainly don't understand it, but i would be looking at the drivers of alienation and anomie and I would focus on the uniquely American / North American version of it. Guns are the instruments and I see no earthly reason for anyone to own one. I grew up in a gun culture and took the same sort of classes John Epps described. I could probably strip down a rifle, shotgun or revolver and put it back together to this day although I never shot more than a tin can jammed into a haystack. Never hunted - haven't touched a weapon for 40 years or more. No one needs military grade weaponry or, for that matter, weapons of any sort. Artifacts of a past culture. Ban them - hand them over to the police for destruction. Mass chemical castration is surely an expression of deep, understandable frustration. The mass shooters have been young men, but to see maleness in-itself as the core of the problem misses the mark entirely. Why are these guys so alienated and ill? In what ways are we failing our sons? How does one grow into a man who cares and acts with compassion? How do we model that? How do we cultivate and celebrate authentic maleness that has real fire in the belly for decency and humanness? How do we illuminate the pathways to goodness and kindness? How do we reward decency? We need, rather desperately, approaches that are thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate. \\/ - - - - - - - - - - Wayne Nelson wnelson@ica-associates.ca O - 416-691-2316 M - 647-229-6910 On 12-172012, at 8:16 AM, Paula Philbrook wrote:

The culture of drugs, guns, domestic violence, excess consumption, and bullying, all point to a similar underlying contradiction-deep personal isolation coupled with a vacuum or absence of community has produced a mindset of "super" power individuals. The individual is more important than the whole.