<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>society on Looking for the Fig Tree</title><link>https://www.jrhoun.com/tags/society/</link><description>Recent content in society on www.jrhoun.com</description><generator>Hugo -- gohugo.io</generator><language>en-us</language><copyright>Copyright © 2022 JR Houn | Built using the Vitae theme for Hugo</copyright><lastBuildDate>Fri, 29 May 2020 22:12:43 -0700</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.jrhoun.com/tags/society/index.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title>Processing Grief and Mourning</title><link>https://www.jrhoun.com/posts/processing-grief-and-mourning/</link><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2020 22:12:43 -0700</pubDate><guid>https://www.jrhoun.com/posts/processing-grief-and-mourning/</guid><description>
My heart is heavy and burdened tonight. As of this writing, protests and riots are occurring across the United States in reaction to the …</description><content> &lt;p>&lt;figure>
&lt;img src="https://www.jrhoun.com/img/mercedes-bosquet-candlelight-unsplash.jpg" alt="A lone candle burning in the night." />
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&lt;p>My heart is heavy and burdened tonight. As of this writing, protests and riots are &lt;a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/us/floyd-protests-usa.html?action=click&amp;amp;module=Spotlight&amp;amp;pgtype=Homepage#link-7901356f" target="_blank">occurring across the United States&lt;/a>
in reaction to the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of police. This is on the heels of the shooting of &lt;a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/26/861992342/arbery-shooting-sparks-racism-corruption-questions-about-georgia-county" target="_blank">Ahmaud Arbery&lt;/a>
and &lt;a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/855611039/shooting-of-unarmed-black-woman-in-kentucky-raises-a-lot-of-questions" target="_blank">Breonna Taylor&lt;/a>
.&lt;/p>
&lt;p>Our society is failing its people. Failing to assure each other of our shared humanity and God given worth. Failing to render reforms that lead to a belief that things will get better. It simply isn&amp;rsquo;t happening. It&amp;rsquo;s a lot easier to point out and condemn rioting and looting but a lot harder to look at decades of systemic racism, in policy and policing. It certainly doesn&amp;rsquo;t help that &lt;a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864732088/minneapolis-seethes-over-george-floyds-death-as-trump-calls-protesters-thugs#tweet" target="_blank">our leader is more interested in pouring gasoline onto the fire&lt;/a>
, enabling, emboldening, and normalizing behavior utterly devoid of empathy, kindness, or humility. It is up to us to do the work &amp;ndash; to build bridges, adjudicate conflict, and to model and represent the values and actions that we wish for ourselves and our children.&lt;/p>
&lt;p>This past week, the US marked the milestone of 100,000 people dying as a result of COVID-19.&lt;/p>
&lt;p>This Sunday (May 31st, 2020) at 9pm, I&amp;rsquo;ll be playing music to process and mourn the deep systemic injustices and tragedies that are rocking our world.&lt;/p>
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