Domestic Abuse...

Today I have more questions than answers. I've been listening to the football pre-game shows and all the buzz is over the domestic violence that is seeming to plague the NFL right now, headlined by the Ray Rice incident where he knocked his then-fiancee (now they're married) out in a casino elevator. One show stated that the FBI says that over 70% of the domestic abuse calls they respond to never get prosecuted. Another statistic is that over 95% of calls are about abuse to women.
Can I extend another viewpoint? First, let me state emphatically that I believe Rice was wrong, and that he deserves whatever he gets. But my question is, what responsibility does his wife carry in the incident? She's the victim, yet she acted very aggressively prior to Rice hitting her. In this day where the cry is for gender equality, for equal rights, it seems to stop when the case of domestic abuse arises.  I believe that one reason is that it isn't manly to file a complaint against a woman for abuse. Yet I can personally testify that women can be just as physically abusive to men as to those that are abused.
I have never laid a hand on a woman, and don't foresee any circumstance in which I would. However, with that said, during my first divorce I had to file for a protective order, and it was granted, for physical abuse perpetrated against me. Several years later, when I remarried, my second wife struck, kicked, scratched, or similarly abused me repeatedly on a number of occasions. To add to that, after one attack she called the police, but hung up. They came to my home anyway and suggested I leave. I told them she was the aggressor and she should leave- and they agreed. It wasn't until I told my wife, after another such incident of abuse, that if she ever laid a hand on me again I would hit her once, and promised I would break something with that hit- then put my fist through a door to emphasize my point- that the physical abuse stopped. Since then I've been single for the last fourteen years, but have had four significant relationships in that time. Of those four, two of the women didn't hesitate to strike out when they got angry.
My point here? If we are going to seriously address domestic abuse then there does need to be gender equality. Yes, men are usually bigger, and stronger, and do more damage, but I'm not convinced that women don't add to the problem far more than they're credited with. It takes two to tango. If you continually poke the bear it will eventually wake up. My brother is 5 years younger than me, and growing up we shared a room. /Many times I got into trouble for "laying my hands on him" as my mom put it. I kept decrying that he was the instigator, that I keep getting punished, but it was his fault. Then one day my mom was around the corner, out of sight listening, as my brother prodded me and pushed me toward a fight. Before I could land him she stepped around the corner and told him that I was right, and he was causing the problem, and from now on when he acted that way I had permission to hit him. For the record, I never once had to hit him again.
Domestic abuse is wrong. Putting your hands on another person is wrong. But it is also wrong to continually verbally poke and prod at another, or act aggressively to try and provoke a physical response. Let's solve the problem by getting to the root of the cause. In the vast majority of cases, by the time a situation escalates to physical responses, the problem is far deeper than the physical act of abuse. We need to learn to effectively and calmly communicate with each other, Calm and communication. Physical abuse is a choice. Choose differently. Choose wisely.
Food for thought...

UFO's, Extra-Terrestrial Life, and Aliens...

I saw a video recently on Facebook, another video showing a "UFO" being chased by several fighter jets. Now I'm not saying it was real, nor am I claiming it's fake. Rather, I want to look at the question of the possibility of other life in the universe. I often hear the opinion that there is not other life out there, or if there is we would have been visited by now. No visits equals proof that we are alone...

Let's look at the facts as we know them... Years ago while teaching some high school students this very issue came up. I walked to the whiteboard, some 4' x 8' long, and told them that this board represents all the knowledge in the entire universe. I reminded them that we are one small planet on the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, a galaxy that astronomers estimate consists of over a thousand million stars (or a billion, if you will), with an average of at least one planet per star. That's one galaxy. Scientists estimate that there are 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in our universe. I asked a student to come up and handed him a marker and asked him to draw a circle on the board representing all the knowledge humans have accumulated throughout our history in light of how much is left to learn in the universe. He paused a moment, the drew a tiny dot in the corner. I asked the rest of the class if they agreed and it was pretty much a consensus. Then I asked him to draw a circle on that dot representing how much of that accumulated knowledge he knew. He said he couldn't because it was too small to write.

We know less than a speck on a dot of what is in our universe, yet we are arrogant enough to believe we are alone. Perhaps we haven't been visited because we don't have anything to offer the larger picture (yet?). I, for one, have learned that the more I learn the more aware I am of how much knowledge is left to learn, and my own ignorance is magnified by what little knowledge I have. Ignorance is indeed bliss, for not knowing how incredibly uninformed we really must be a comfort. I believe that, at least on that day, some students became aware of how little we actually know, and to say with conviction that there is no other life in the universe is human arrogance at its greatest. With so much unknown out there how can anyone say we are alone?

Perhaps, one day after my Lord has come and restored His creation and His people, we will have the opportunity to explore our vast universe, to travel to galaxies and stars and planets that can only live now in our imaginations! How cool would that be?
Food for thought...