www.sanctuaryforchange.comI was doing my thing on the treadmill at the gym this afternoon while four huge flat screen TVs peered back at me. Two were tuned into CNN and the other two, ESPN. I rationalize my mid-day gym visits as brainstorming sessions for my next writing project, so I was well in the mode to use the time to go within. Yet I happened to look up to the CNN screen to something that caught my attention. It was a header screen which read, “Virginia Tech Massacre: The Mind of a Killer”. Whoa, I thought, as I witnessed this plea to sensationalism. If voyeurism sells to one extreme, why can’t it work for the other? Can we learn to find the mind of a lover just as provocative?

What do I mean by a lover in this context? Someone who shares compassion and love to their fellow human beings. Someone who views the heart of their earthly brothers and sisters as sensitively as they do their own. Someone whose eyes look deeply into the eyes of a stranger, acknowledging their human connection for no other reason than to just share that connection. Someone who takes great joy out of this kind of anonymous touch. After all, isn’t this the behavior that our world desperately needs? Isn’t this the model worth our voyeurism?

It’s been said that we teach what we value. By focusing on killer behavior, we feed it. Yet if we determine that love is what we value, we need to begin to show that we value that behavior. We need to honor what it means to be compassionate. We need to celebrate the act of brotherly love.

I don’t know who you are as you are reading this. Yet if you showed up in my physical space I’d want to hug you and acknowledge our connection in this world. I’ve set the tone for that to happen just by mentioning it. So what if we all set the intention to spread love and human compassion? Like John Lennon said, “Maybe I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us and the world will live as one.”