Heat vs. Light

You all know the saying "more heat than light" when referring to a debate that allows anger and venom to win out over informed dialogue. I find myself musing today (not for the first time) about the prevalence of angry diatribe versus informed and socially appropriate debate. At one point in the not too distant past, Debate Teams were seen as an important part of High School education. Nowadays, if a High School even has a Debate Team, it is relegated to the deepest, darkest part of the High School experience and there it languishes. The learning that comes from building and debating a topic is lost to the whims of personal opinion and technological savvy. If I can get my viewpoint out faster and broader than my "opponent" then I will win in the court of public opinion. Case-in-point, the current news "reporting" about child abuse in Penn State and Syracuse atheletic programs. Child abuse and pornography are hot button issues to be sure, and are serious issues that we as humns need to deal with appropriately to ensure healthy and safe enviroments for our children to grow. However, when we allow our "need for news and gossip" to outweigh our need to know facts, then we run the real danger (and current reality) of trying people before they've ever had their right to a trial of their peers. I don't know what has happened in either of the situations mentioned, even though there's been an outrageous (IMHO) amount of news coverage devoted to these issues. When news becomes focused on headline making rather than balanced investigative reporting (lots of work and longer time frame results) we all become victims of abuse - abuse of our intellect and humanity. Time and again in scripture we are cautioned against judgments. We are encouraged to forgive - not to forget nor to act like hurtful things never happened, but to forgive and to release the power that the perpetrator has over our view of the world and our ability to live our lives freely and fully. Forgiveness is an individual act that requires nothing of the other party. This is why forgiveness is so challenging...we want the perpetrator to be "brought to justice" and to "suffer as we have". Vengence appears to be sweet and healing on the surface, but the reality is something altogether different. Justice never takes away waht happened, nor does it allow for the transformative love of God to intervene and heal the situation. Certainly, people who hurt other people must be stopped, and that often requires judicial intervention, but healing is not part of our criminal justice system. News people and editors have forgotten that everyone deserves a fair shake - and our current delivery system for news is not focused on balance and fairness. Life is not like CSI nor NCIS, issues do not resolve themselves in 60 minutes into nice tidy packages of right overcoming wrong. We need to remember that life is messy and difficult and requires a lot of work to relate to each other in healthy and wholesome ways. The internet is not helping that process. Do yourself a favor and find your way to decent reporting that doesn't seek to vilify or promote guilty until proven innocent. The longer I live, the less judgemental I become, the more latitude I allow for the fact that I don't know everything - and I never will. I do know, however, that God is God and I am not - and I find myself thankful for that reality as it provides much light for my path. Peace for the journey, Dan