14
Wednesday, September 2, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
In the
PINES
By T. Lee Brown
The heart
opens
A man was murdered. His
name was Aaron Danielson,
but he also went by the
name Jay Bishop. From
what we know as I write
this, he was from Vancouver,
Washington, and belonged
to the group Patriot Prayer.
He had a bright, warm smile,
a smile his loved ones will
never see again.
I don9t know much else
about Aaron-Jay, except
that he was shot and killed
in Portland this weekend. I
learned about the incident
from a Twitter post with cell
phone video, posted by a
controversial, conservative-
leaning magazine editor.
He specified that the shoot-
ing didn9t <appear to be
related to the ongoing Antifa
protest.=
Conservative media has
since exploded with accusa-
tions that this was an anti-
Trump hit job. An unhinged
Antifa protester has been
named as a potential sus-
pect. As the social media
melée unfolds, as thousands
of bot-generated echo sites
disguised as news media
amplify the language of
hate around this incident, I
find it hard to draw myself
away from the conflict and
suspense.
It is hard to step away
long enough to feel grief,
to feel the true sorrow that
comes with sympathy, to
process the pain we can feel
when contemplating a mys-
tifying, pointless loss of
human life. Sometimes our
courage wobbles. Fear keeps
us focused elsewhere.
If we feel something real
and painful, it may threaten
our sense of comfort and
security. To feel truly and
deeply, to allow ourselves to
flow with sympathy, empa-
thy, grief, and love 4 this
kind of thing could wrench
us out of our bubble.
If sufficiently strong, it
could cause us to question
our group9s way of thinking.
What then? If our inner life
doesn9t match up to that of
our friends, family, church,
news media, or political
party 4 what then?
So we read and watch the
news. We focus on details
and factoids: How many
pints of blood pooled around
the victim9s body after he
was shot? What kind of skirt
was she wearing when she
was assaulted? Did the plane
fly into the building from
the south, or was it more of
a south-southeasterly flight?
We focus on the idea of
justice and perhaps fanta-
size about its second cousin,
revenge. Assessing blame
and condemnation, flinging
self-righteous indignation
at the presumed guilty: this
is all far easier than sitting
with the bleak, heartrend-
ing knowledge that a fellow
human being was killed.
That fellow Northwesterners
have lost their friend, their
son, their relative, and will
never get him back in Earthly
GIFT CARDS are a
great way to say
THANK YOU!
form. That murder and war
are spun into humanity9s
fibers, the warp and woof
of our history and tempera-
ment. That we, too, will die
in our time.
The ongoing narrative,
the alleged story around the
tragedy, provides a grand
distraction from real pain
and loss. Some narratives
are specifically designed to
manipulate what the public
feels, what it buys, who it
votes for. Others are home-
grown affairs: speculations
that fit a person9s worldview,
musings on the political
ramifications of the tragedy
at hand.
C o n s p i r a c y t h e o r i e s
emerge. Some explore
important avenues of truth:
was Lee Harvey Oswald
really a lone gunman? Could
the CIA be dealing cocaine
and shuttling illegal arms to
Central America under the
benevolent watch of Ronald
Reagan and Oliver North?
Some stories that sound
impossible turn out to be
true.
Given the history of infil-
trators in American pro-
test movements, from early
union organizers to civil
rights and anti-Vietnam
War demonstrators, was the
shooter incited by an Antifa
infiltrator? Was the shooter
himself an Antifa infiltrator?
Was it a cruel assassination
ordered by power players in
DC, to rile up the base at the
expense of an actual, every-
day Trump supporter? Or
was the shooter just a lone
lunatic who imagined his
heinous act would be seen as
heroic?
It was not heroic. It was
stupid, evil, sad, and wrong
4 as human beings so often
are.
Some conspiracy talk
undermines our attempts
to trust each other or reach
consensus on any topic. If
we can just focus on how
Hillary and Q are traffick-
ing children in the nonex-
istent basement of a pizza
parlor, maybe we can avoid
our pain. If we can obsess on
Antifa and cell-phone foot-
age, we can avoid delving
into our own dark side, the
shadow side every person
carries with us 4 every soci-
ety, too.
Sufficiently distracted,
we avoid the opening of the
heart that accompanies true
grief. If we do not cry, we
cannot share the profound
human experience of crying
together.
I am crying today. I
mourn the loss of Aaron
<Jay= Danielson. I cry over
the lack of decency, civility,
justice, and courage evident
across party lines. I cry over
my own wrongdoings and
shortcomings. As I weep, my
heart opens. And there, glim-
mering, I find hope.
There’s something special
about gathering around a
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pits to choose from!
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