It is easy to get wrapped up in the tragic and devastating events of the day. The news is filled with the terror and horror of everyday life, often in some other part of the world, but occasionally even right in our own back yard. Crazy people are flourishing, and insanity seems to feed on itself. The more we allow the inmates to run the asylum, the worse things get.
This was brought home to me this week in a weird way, when our highly esteemed Chief of Police in our very small town of 1500 people asked an interesting and thoughtful question. It is a serious question, and I know that it has to be something he considers every single day, not only for himself, but for his subordinates, whose safety he is tasked with ensuring to the greatest extent he can in an uncertain profession. The question was whether he should lock the door of the police station, or continue to leave it open and accessible to the public whenever they choose to walk through it.
I thought about that question for some time, and read through the dozens of comments made by people from all over the country. His 20,000 passionate Facebook followers took it seriously, and those who responded were almost unanimously in favor of his locking the door and keeping him as safe as possible while on the job. And I respect that opinion.
But I think, in the final analysis, that perhaps by locking the door, by creating a barrier, by shutting out the very public he is tasked to serve, perhaps we find some of the roots of the lack of respect for authority we see today. I realize Mayberry is a myth - maybe it never really existed, but it surely does not exist any longer in this terror driven world - but have we allowed our fear to create the very conditions under which the isolation from each other creates an even greater problem?
I think that may well be part of the downward spiral in which we find ourselves, not just for police officers, but for everyone. We are a civilization in retreat. We hide behind our phones. We hide behind our computer screens. We hide behind our privacy fences and our window blinds and our locked doors. We are afraid of uncertainty, and we do everything under our power to remove the element of the unexpected from our world.
But in doing this, in putting a fence around ourselves blocking full access from everything and everyone, maybe we set up the us versus them mentality that creates the problem in the first place.
I don't know. I am not a sociologist. I haven't done a study, or received a grant to do an in depth analysis of the facts. I am just a person who observes thoughtfully the world I live in, and what I see is a lot of isolation and loneliness. Where neighbors used to chat and have coffee together while their children played outside, we now rush around taking kids here and there in their strictly scheduled activities and barely recognize those we live alongside. In my neighborhood, I rarely see a child outside. The groomed lawns stand empty, the grass pristine, as the children go elsewhere to engage in activities that have been planned for them. The park down the street holds no laughter, because the children who should be there playing are busy in a gym or another supervised setting.
I am not Pollyanna. The world is a crazy place, and I understand the need to protect and provide safety for our youngsters, as well as ourselves. I just lament that the days of children running free, coming home for lunch and dinner, and mostly disappearing in between, are over, replaced with a cell phone umbilical cord and an automobile tether. The leash, although invisible, is just as real as the one I put on my dogs when they go out my back door.
Which brings me back to the original question which prompted this post. I understand the need for big city police departments to lock their doors and restrict access. There are too many crazy people out there who have no respect for authority, and who do not understand that life is precious and will take it away without a thought. But by closing off those who are tasked to protect and defend life as we know it, I wonder how much we have interfered with the ability of the police to connect with the very public they are supposed to be serving.
Have we created an atmosphere where police officers feel besieged, where they are on one team, and the public on another team? Us versus them? I feel, reading about some of the recent incidents, that this is exactly what has happened. People on both sides thinking in order for one team to win, the other team has to lose, and it's a winner takes all end sum game.
I think it is exactly the opposite, and this is what I think our own police chief has gotten right so far. We either win or lose together. We build trust and mutual respect, or we have nothing but anarchy.
We need not look far to see the results of that mentality. Ferguson, Missouri is a shell of a city today. Businesses burned and never coming back. Residents disillusioned by the events of the last few months, and officers equally demoralized by the lack of understanding given by the public when they must make a life and death decision in a moment's time.
I do not want to live in a world governed by fear. I want to live in a world which, while imperfect, is run on the precept that people are generally good, and that most of the time, we are trying our best to do the right thing. And I think that is generally true.
While the crazy individuals rule the news, the vast majority of people get no air time while they quietly go about the business of living the best life they can. There are millions of people in the United States who aren't in jail, don't do drugs, aren't abusing their children or their spouse, work hard, and help others.
When a young child, injured in a plane crash walked to the nearest home, she found respite, not violence. Homeless people have shelter provided by strangers who care. Food shelves are supported by those who do not have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. Volunteers travel all over the world, risking their health and safety, to help those less fortunate have a better life. Christmas is celebrated by children in homes across the nation because of the kindness of people who have never met them but bought toys and clothes and food for them anyway. Dogs and cats are rescued on a daily basis and rehomed to new families who love and cherish them.
I think the world would be a better place if we focused more on the positive events, and shrugged off the negative ones a little more easily. The 24/7 news cycle has benefited Fox and CNN, but I don't know that it has benefited the human beings who live in the world they are covering.
I have been to some poor parts of the world, where people have little to nothing which we in the U.S. consider essential to our happiness. I watched a little girl in SE Asia emerge from a hut I wouldn't allow my pet to enter for fear it would fall down on them, clothed in a shredded dress, but with a perky bow in her hair, and she smiled as she played with a stick in the dirt. I have seen manual laborers in Mexico crowded in the back of a pickup truck riding home from work with smiles on their faces like they have just won the lottery instead of spending the day in back breaking effort for tourists who won't even notice they exist. I have watched a Masai tribesman stride across the Serengeti plain in Tanzania, proud and certain that his life is valuable to the only people who matter, his own family, and it inspired me.
I don't have the answer to the question of whether to lock or not. I consider our police chief a personal friend, as well as a city employee, so I want him to be safe, but I also want him to be true to himself. I have confidence he will make the right decision, because he usually does. He is one of the good people we rarely hear about, living his life as best he can, and inspiring others to do the same by his example.
But I share the dream of a world where the barriers are coming down instead of being raised up. That, to me, would be peace on earth. That is the way it was meant to be.
