Are we Listening to Bob Marley?
By Julian "Jingles" Reynolds

Natural Mystic
Lyrics by Bob Marley

There's a natural mystic blowing through the air;
If you listen carefully now you will hear.
This could be the first trumpet, might as well be the last:
Many more will have to suffer,
Many more will have to die - don't ask me why.

My brethren, the reggae icon from Jamaica, the late Robert Nesta Marley was as much a prophet and visionary as he was a singer and song writer. His lyrics for the song "Natural Mystic" convey one of the most profound messages, rivaling any similar passages in the Holy Bible, the Torah, or the Holy Quran.
The slaughtering of 27 people including 20 innocent little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut has shocked and repulsed the world, and in particular the American people. That it happened so close to the Christmas holidays and in the middle of the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, and on the east coast so close to the communications center of the world, New York, makes the impact inescapable.
President Obama as he addressed the nation a few hours after the devastating incident wiped tears from his eyes from the heartfelt grief, shared by millions of Americans, and peoples of the world. But this heart wrenching feeling is one experienced continuously by thousands of people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Africa, where wars fought with bombs dropped by planes on targets thousands of miles away, and missiles launched, unable to discern fighters from civilians, destroy the lives of innocent people. This feeling of grief, horror and helplessness grips the parents of children slaughtered in drone attacks used by the United States in fighting terrorists in these Middle East and African countries. It is felt too frequently in America's inner cities by parents losing children to violence perpetrated by criminals using illegally purchased guns.
The U.S. Government and people accept the losses by others in far off countries as "collateral damage" necessary to get rid of the hard to get at terrorists bent on destroying America. They shun those lives lost at home in urban, mostly African-American and Hispanic communities, to gun violence. But these too are human lives. That this slaughter of innocent little children has now come home to America in this season of family, love, happiness, and good spirits, is a signal from what Bob Marley describes as a natural mystic: for us to pause and honestly check ourselves.
No act is more depraved than the harming of children, whether it is by one selfish, evil individual with firearms suitable to fight a war, or by governments giving orders to launch missiles by the click of a mouse or push of a button. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is a message from Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 7, verse 12. It should be the fundamental guiding principle of human co-existence.
Once again, Americans are asked to rethink the laws governing the manufacturing, purchase and intended use of guns in this country. Too often easy access to guns by troubled minds, used in senseless acts are taking innocent lives. Connecticut is one of the leading firearms manufacturing states in the US, home for some of the oldest and best known companies manufacturing firearms and military weaponry. Available statistics reveal "over 300 million" firearms are owned by Americans, with a population of 311 million.
According to a recent ABC-TV report, Guns in America, citing statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 5,459,240 firearms were manufactured in America in 2010, and 3,252,404 guns were imported in 2011. From 1986 to present not less than three million firearms were manufactured each year in the U.S. Many of these guns end up in other countries like Jamaica, Mexico, Trinidad, Guyana, and Guatemala causing thousands of causalities and more suffering in these countries. And while the U.S. government continues to spend millions in resources to combat illegal drugs entering the U.S. nothing is being said or done to stem the flow of illegal guns being exported.
Despite the many issues that will be discussed once again around the killing of the innocents by gun-crazed individuals; gun control, mental health, the preponderance of violent television shows, video games, in the cinema; the fundamental ones, the monies generated in the manufacturing and dealing of firearms, and the spiritual connectedness of the human existence, the balance of the universe, will not be. The belief that every action is balanced by a reaction, sooner or later, is ridiculed and dismissed by those well privileged, educated and immersed in the comforts of their present existence, as nonsense coming from "leftist," "pacifist," and "anti-Americans". America is in denial.
The "natural mystic" that Marley sings of must be applied to this havoc, brought home so close at this time, one of the holiest on the Christian calendar. Is it just coincidence that the slaughtering of these children and women by someone, at the still young age of 20, took place in Sandy Hook, only a few weeks following one of the most destructive natural disasters to hit the American east coast, Hurricane Sandy? There is a natural mystic blowing through the air. Shelve the arrogance, chest thumping mightier than you attitude, and take heed.
(Julian "Jingles" Reynolds is a writer, filmmaker and entrepreneur, and operates in the United States and Jamaica. His novel "A Reason for Living" will be published in 2013.)