Prayers

We offer our deepest sympathies to the families of the victims of the Pulse night club shooting in Orlando

We also offer our compassion and love to those who have been traumatized by  this attack, not only the ones in the club but many throughout our land who  have been terrorized to think it could happen to them.

We are beginning to hear that hate, combined with a certain form of mental illness and possibly, gender identity confusion could have led to such carnage. The proclamation that this was done in the name of ISIS was made.

I must say that all people who dislike or hate others do not commit mass murder.

Very few mentally ill people want to kill anybody.

A person struggling with gender identity is most likely to want to kill themselves, because of the bullying and discrimination they experience.

Finally, if ISIS is to blame, ISIS is to blame. And if ISIS represents all Muslims, then the Ku Klux Klan represents all Christians.

When Timothy McVeigh bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, no one indicted  the United States Marines and they shouldn’t have. But he had been a Marine.

Apparently the issues of the killer in Orlando were complex and are still being sorted  out through post mortem interviews, searches and seizures.

But what can we do besides obsessing about this through endless media coverage?

One thing we can always do is to pray for such folks, their families and their communities.  Perhaps, advocating for the mentally ill and offering loving support to their families is the best we can do.

Then we can work to make this a saner world by loving each other, teaching peaceful tolerance of our differences and by learning about and living like Jesus.

I wish I knew what more to tell you.

Moving to the deeper places,
Jeff