Synergism and the Death Penalty

Good morning blog!  It's not morning, but I feel like it is.  Thank God something is able to leave me, to shake loose, to emerge into this electronic truth space and leave my heart as an articulation, a scratch, a sign somehow that I am still here learning and processing.  Why am I taking this so seriously?  It must be because some days I really have nothing to say, and I don't know why.  Maybe it's just that I love BEING so much, and I'm So Thankful! 

Well, ok, this week I was teaching communication out of this new textbook, "Values, How then Shall We Live?"  It's a very cool book.  http://www.starpublishing.com/ (No, it's not like 'right wing' type values, it's just VALUES.)  So this book is telling the students that being "synergistic" is a communication skill.  And I'm thinking, "Yeah, that's right."  What I take this to mean is that if a person comes into a room, and there's already some people in there, and they are interacting and have some kind of group culture going on and so forth, that one can pick up what channel they are on, and look for the good things they have going on, and connect with those things, rather than dumping whatever mood and agenda one brings with them.  As a teacher, I've kinda learned to do that--to find out what the class will create among themselves and then build with and from what they get going on. 

I found this definition of synergy on the web:  "The simultaneous joint action of separate parties which, together, have greater total effect than the sum of their individual effects."
http://www.eyefortransport.com/glossary/st.shtml&usg 
All the definitions are fairly similar.  Some say the effects of joint action are merely "different" than the effects of any of the agents acting alone, while others, such as the one above, say the effects are "greater." 

I'm against the death penalty, and here's why:  I live in Arizona, and Arizona, like other states, has notorious criminals, and ours include a family known as "The Tison Brothers."  These people were on the run and asked a family to help them.  After the family helped them, the Tisons murdered several members of the family, including a two-year-old.  I'm not sure I've got the story right, but it involved killing a two-year-old and other family members.  One of the Tison brothers was executed one evening while I was at home doing the dishes.  The TV news covered the execution, and there was a sort of "count down" going on.  My husband was watching the TV screen, and I was washing the dishes, looking out the kitchen window at the sunset sky.  I watched the sunlight reflected in the clouds in shades of pink, orange, white, gray, blue.  I watched the shapes of the clouds, their repeated mists and folds, their silent shining.  As I watched, I felt thoughts and feelings from all over!  I could feel them as they existed in the sky, above the people of the state.  Surprised, I continued to look at the clouds, but to feel the righteous anger of the people of Arizona.  It was a multi-origined experience of knowing thoughts of anger and condemnation.  He deserves it!  He SHOULD die!  I'm GLAD he's going to DIE!!!  DIE! DIE! DIE!!!  I felt these thoughts!!! From outside of me!  Not inside of me.  Inside of me was...empty.  I didn't want to feel this anger. 

"What is different," I asked myself, "between this Tison man saying to himself, 'this person deserves to die because her continued existence is some kind of threat to me!' and these good people sitting at home and saying, 'this Tison man deserves to die because he killed people who were just being kind to him, and also an innocent baby?"  Well, the average sane person would say, "Because the family and baby were innocent.  He took their lives with no just cause.  He is an evil murderer, and should die."  But the HATRED of the thoughts I felt that evening was so ACTIVE, and self-righteous and focussed!  It was NOT about righting a wrong, it was about HATRED -- and isn't that what triggered the Tison man to kill in the first place?  The act of HATING the other? 

So as I'm staring at the clouds and feeling all these thoughts and emotions as if the sky were some kind of open, buzzing, vibrating multifrequencied radio medium, and feeling as if I were somehow an unwilling captive of this whole experience, amazed and shocked; the next thing that happened was a voice, an Intelligence that spoke to me.  There was an intensification of the echoing violent, malevolent, lustful, vengeful thoughts, and then, ferverently, the Intelligence formed these words in my mind:  "THIS IS WRONG!"

The meaning I got from this message is that the vengeful thoughts and emotions about the execution were morally wrong--more wrong than the execution itself!  The message I got was that if society needed this man to die --to create justice--  so that people who believe such "justice" is necessary don't take it into their own hands?  I don't know.  I've thought about it a lot since then--it's been several years-- I can't explain why the message was what it was.  But the idea was that only with Great Love should an execution ever take place.  An "execution" that is not initiated from a motivation of Great and Tender Love is not a valid execution, but something else.  Beats me!  I donno.  I really don't!!!  Did anybody ever hear any teachings like that?

So--getting back to synergism.  The experience of being in touch with all those thoughts and emotions taught me something about synergy.  Taught me that our thoughts are an active part of our environment, and are a potent force for good--or not so good--existence.  So let's make with the positive vibes, OK?

Wishing you all Joy and Peace!