MUCHO VIOLENCIA!!! MUCH VIOLENCE!!!

BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD!

This proverb is an expression of humility; in using it, a speaker acknowledges that outside factors (such as God's grace, or his upbringing) have played a role in his success in life.

The adverbial phrase is often set off with commas: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Origin

Allegedly from a mid-sixteenth-century statement by John Bradford, "There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford", in reference to a group of prisoners being led to execution.

Said when something bad that has happened to someone else could have happened to you. 

Used to acknowledge one’s good fortune in avoiding another’s mistake or misfortune.

FACING A VIOLENT SITUATION, it is useful to search for professional guidance or groups and other solutions which can help give positive support.  It doesn´t help at all to make a response of more violence or provoke more aggression.

But, how can we know who to trust?  It can help to search through references or consultations with wise referrals, and by seeing the signs before us along the way.  Taking the easy way out can often cause more problems instead of making solutions.  For example, a young woman with a small child calls the police while having a fight with her husband who has come home late and drunk.  He is unreasonable and aggressive.  She calls the police.  The police in this case are even more aggressive and abusive.  They beat the husband, put him in jail, and nearly break his legs.  Society is more violent than the individual case.  A complete revision should be made.  Maybe she should have taken steps to figure out a way to communicate with her husband before he got drunk, or to join a group, or find a relative or professional to help her deal with the problem before it got too out of hand.

Getting a divorce too early, or separating when other measures are possible, is not advisable either.  The sanest solution is to search out resolutions before a monster is created.  But, the problem is we tend to let things go until they are unmanageable.  It is soooo important to see the warning signs and correct them in time.

When I was an adolescent I was in a group of young rambunctious peers.  We were all basically good people, but we did not have the contention of adults, and we were teenagers in a changing time, the late ´60´s and early ´70´s.  We escaped from our homes because one of us got a bad note at school.  We were in an older boy´s car late at night and a police officer stopped us.  He took us to a detention home.  Because we had been taken there, it was stipulated that a Judge must decide about us.  The Judge decided to separate the group.  Two of the girls were sent to an Adoption Home in another town so that they could ¨learn¨ from it and supposedly change their ways.  One or two of the girls were left at the same school.  I was sent to another school at a distance.  Instead of working with the group and helping us learn to deal with our environment, and finding out what the problems were, they violently separated us.  We cared about each other.  There were many good aspects to our existence together.  In my case, it hurt me greatly to be left alone in a school where I didn´t know anyone, at that delicate age, and with a personality which was already reserved and quiet.  Looking back, I see how much it all damaged my life.  And we were basically ¨good¨ girls.  Imagine how they handle real problem people!

I remember back to when we lived in Aberdeen, South Dakota.  The Church had just made a recreation center, and it would be for the young people especially.  I was 11 years old and so happy to dance the Beatle´s music and do gym exercises with my friends.  It was cut short when we moved to Albuquerque, a Hub town, and crossroads.  None of that existed in Albuquerque, and I was thrown into the void.  No one was available to help me through the difficult time of growing up!

I, personally, have found that prayer and contemplation have been excellent tools, but I was in a cloud and not aware of what was really happening.  Awareness and being conscious is so important.

It is so necessary to recognize weaknesses and one´s own faults.  I am not talking about, say, the guilt of wearing a short dress, or smoking.  Faults like not being prepared emotionally and qualified to deal with situations, etc. Faults like not taking charge of responsibilities for oneself, or prognosticating, not knowing how to reach out for solutions.

The virtues of the other person should also be recognized, and ability to build on them is paramount.  A sincere inquiry of the situation and getting to the roots will help in resolving many problems that had seemed impossible.

GETTING TO THE ROOTS!

Even the Bible tells us to get to the roots of problems in order to solution them.  Only then can the ills be shed off completely.  Such a profound examination can take many, many years, but it is often the only way to get growing to true success, instead of taking the easy way out.

THE BIG PAYOFF!

We need something more.  It can´t be that the most of us are abused, used and poor.  They who are richest through unscrupulous actions often make a society of violence in which they can take advantage of the weaker.  Listening to propaganda, our aching hearts thirst for truth.  The masses turn to materialism, the media, drugs, alcohol, or escape, while what is really needed according to Anabella Ascar is ¨Spirit¨. This contradiction of values causes violence in all of society.

We look about, hoping in those who still have youth.  What does it mean to have many things if you are not healthy?  Youth and health are so priceless!

Many thirst and hunger for something they need to take them to a way that is more important.  So frustrated in not finding it in our institutions, schools, and yes, even churches, they turn to elements that cloud their vision.  The violence takes over.  They attempt to dominate, as they are even more dominated by the oppressive situation of unjust work situations, oppressive advertisements, and structures pressing on them. 

A negative situation flows from one to another, and the weakest, unprepared to deal with situations and change them, become more and more trampled upon.  However, ¨It takes two to tango¨!  This is an idiomatic expression which means (in this case) that it takes more than one to keep a situation going. It suggests something in which more than one person or other entity are paired in an inextricably-related and active manner, occasionally with negative connotations.  It takes more than one to argue and be aggressive.  At the same time, it takes more than one to dance the Tango elegantly and well, which is the advisable situation.

The tango is a dance which requires two partners moving in relation to each other, sometimes in tandem, sometimes in opposition.[2] The meaning of this expression has been extended to include any situation in which the two partners are by definition understood to be essential -- as in, a marriage with only one partner ceases to be a marriage. 

To turn around an aggressive situation, (especially when left unattended for much time), it can take years, much effort, an important support system, and care.  These elements are rare to find, but it can be done.  The same way each thought or action forms, so do powerful storms! This all can be built over time, and it also demands the efforts of the person who is underprivileged socially speaking.   It may take a quite a bit of social engineering to obtain building this ideal structure!  What are the underlining complications in the situation?  Obviously, in a very extreme case of violence, often the only solution is to separate the victim from the situation.

Many times a person makes a relationship with another who seems much more violent.  This can happen perhaps because society is even more violent, and in some ways, they are searching for a protection from that greater violence.  For example, a young woman who searches out a partner because her father was a drunk and beat her.  As the situation progresses, getting more and more violent, based in materialism, the protector becomes the aggressor.  It takes much patience and firmness to deal with such a situation, but it is possible, searching out support, and listening to the signs and answers that are there.  A proficient Tango dancer learns with practice and skill!

If you read this carefully, you may be able to use it to get to an old age, like me, 39 years married, and with a bright, positive situation, (not perfect, but very good, and as I say, ¨The perfect gives way to goodness¨!), and be able to say, ¨But for the Grace of God, there goes I¨!!!