Four Dead in Ohio: The Shootings at Kent State

(I wrote this piece last year on the Anniversary of the Kent State Shootings--but it never made it to the Rambling On Blog.  It's hard to believe that a year has passed, let alone 43 of them since I walked into the teacher's lounge at Wauconda Middle School as a first year teacher to hear a colleague proclaim, "those kids got exactly what they deserved. "  I shuddered at the time.  I shudder as I recall that memory.

As the pundits search for answers to the Boston Marathon tragedy, the shootings in Newtown or Aurora, how often to do they address the glorification of violence that lies deep in the fabric of our own cultural values? A society that continues to support capital punishment and the use of drones against distant villagers; a society that entertains itself with violent video games and countless media heroes with blazing guns, a society where Donald Trump would be seriously considered for the office of President, need not look any further for the answers. -----Brother Lefty ) 

Originally Published, May 4, 2013 

Lest we forget--or never knew--on this day in 1970 four students at Kent State University were killed when national guard troops called into "maintain order" opened fire on the unarmed protestors.

I hadn't realized the anniversary was today until Jenny, my friend and Yoga Mentor mentioned it this evening after class.  She was amazed that when she had mentioned to a 40 something year old friend earlier, she had never heard about Kent State--or Crosby Stills Nash and Young for that matter!! The true history of the quest for peace and justice--and the violent reaction to it--is so often lost in the noise and distractions of daily life in this hyper-capitalistic society today.  It's easy to forget.  I did today--twice.
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As I moved through hobbling around on these crutches to make dinner and went upstairs to get ready to be horizontal, I had entirely forgotten about Kent State again--until a Facebook post from Iris Sutter via Seniors for a Democratic Society! 

I immediately crawled over to grab the 12 stringer and sang a few rounds of CSNY's "Ohio".  ( I've included a stirring -- and chilling-- YouTube video produced by Hard Rain Productions of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's version below.) Now I sit here with fingers flying over this keyboard, crying over the needless bloodshed that our species it prone to--and how Noble and Courageous the quest for Peace truly is.

I'm so grateful to all those people, the countless human beings whose names I'll never know who have waged peace, often at the risk of their own safety, throughout human history.  I'm grateful to all those who continue on.  I'm also grateful for the good fortune to have stumbled across the Teachers, Teachings, and Meditation Practices that help me to face all this, to feel it fully without closing my heart or losing my nerve.  How else, at age 70, could I keep on trucking along the Path of Peace?