It's not a matter of "IF." It's a matter of "WHEN."

 

Last night I did something on Facebook I thought I would never have to do. I marked myself safe during a shooting in Richmond, VA. Was I present at the shooting? No, but friends on Facebook who live outside of Richmond do not know that, and all they know is that I live in Richmond, and there was an active shooter situation where people were injured and killed. I can't say I'm shocked. I can't even say I'm sad. I'm numb! What will it take? Really, what will it take? This particular shooting, and I need to clarify because there are so many, took place last night outside of the Altria Theater just blocks from where my daughter works every day, a place I have attended several events and was just there on Mother's Day at the very same theater. They had just had a graduation of a local high school in the theater, and people were streaming outside to find their loved ones, take pictures, hug friends, happy moments and memories to last a lifetime, and shots ring out. This story from ABC's Good Morning America shows footage of the actual shooting. A friend was their with her daughter for her graduation. Happy pre-graduation photos in cap and gown in front of the theater, and in just a few short hours the same space would be sectioned off with yellow tape as a crime scene. This is my city. This is where I grew up. This is where I live, and now I can say this is where a mass shooting took place. Woo Hoo! Not a distinction I'm thrilled to claim. The local radio station I listen to on my way to work was inviting people to call and talk this morning, a sort of open forum. This grandmother called, and one of the things she said that really stuck with me was "We just need to keep praying. That's all we can do." All due respect to her, but I'm sorry, I'm sick of that trite, unhelpful response to this happening over and over again! Now before you Christians come after me, I wasn't taking issue with praying. I pray, and I'm a Christian, but I am feeling more and more like Ghandi as time passes when he said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." If we are praying people, should we pray and have empathy for their loss, fear, anxiety, absolutely Yes! However her second statement is what riled me. "It's all we can do." Sorry, but it's not all we can do. It's all we've been doing, but it's not helping. We are the only nation that this is a massive problem. Pun intended. As a follower of Christ, and a believer in God, I search for guidance when I am troubled or have a problem that needs to be solved. I do not sit back and pray and expect God to magically fix it. Frankly, that's a little naive at best, and at worst, it's lazy expecting God to do the work, and when something fails, you have a convenient excuse that "it wasn't God's will." I love this old joke. You may have heard it: A man is in his house and a raging flood is causing the waters to rise up to his front door. A man comes by in a rowboat. "Get in," he yells to the man. The man responds, "God will save me," and waves the row boat on. The waters continue to rise, and the first floor is flooded. From the second story window, another rowboat goes by and yells for the man to get in. "God will save me," the man replies and, again, waves the row boat on. The waters continue to rise, and the second floor is now flooded, and the man is standing on the roof. A helicopter hovers above him sending down a ladder and motions for the man to climb up. "God will save me," he yells up and waves the copter away. The waters continue to rise, and the man drowns. He finds himself face to face with God in Heaven. Incredulously he asks, "God, why didn't you save me?" God looks straight at the man and says, "I sent you 2 rowboats and a helicopter." When all we're doing is praying to God and not listening to Him, we're missing our rowboats and helicopters. Solutions to this problem of mass shooting are all around us. Other countries don't have this problem. Why aren't we doing what they're doing? Why aren't we even trying to do anything? I'll tell you why. No one cares! The first mass shooting in the US occurred in 1982, according to this data from Mother Jones webpage In Miami, FL, in August of 1982, Carl Robert Brown methodically shot and attempted to kill everyone in a welding shop after having an argument the previous day over a $20.00 bill. 8 died, 3 others were injured. He purchased 2 shotguns and a semi-automatic rifle the morning of the shooting at a gun shop near his home. Since then, there have been hundreds. In 2023, alone, and we are only half way through, there have been 279 mass shootings in the US, that's including yesterday's in my hometown. And in case you're trying to make yourself feel better, and say, well, how many people died in all of those shootings? It doesn't f*cking matter! Someone opened fire into a crowd of people. A mass shooting is defined as 4 or more people shot at one time in the same relative area. I know there are people who will try to re-classify the shooting here in Richmond because the shooter knew the victim. "Well, that was personal." "That person had a grudge against the victim." And on, and on, and on. SHUT UP! That's the problem. it didn't affect them, so they don't have to worry about it. If they had been standing on Laurel street yesterday and had to run for fear that the pops they were hearing would possibly result in them being shot, they wouldn't be asking any clarifying questions. IT HAS TO STOP!!!!! There is no excuse. We can do something! Other people have done it. Hell, we've done it. The number of deaths caused by mass shootings and the number of shootings overall dropped from 1994 - 2004 when the US had a ban on Assault type weapons. Did you even know we had one? It was only signed into law if it had an expiration date, so it lasted 10 years, and the clause to make it expire would have had to be repealed by congress. That didn't happen, and it expired in 2004, and guess what happened in 2005? There was a steep and almost immediate rise in Mass shootings and deaths in those cases. From The Oregonian, average number of deaths per year from mass shootings went from 5.3 during the ban to 25 after the ban expired. Numbers do not lie! Why do we let it continue? What will cause this country to get it's act together and do something to stop this massacre? Until they start caring about people more than money, nothing will be done, and then you can plan on the fact that it won't be "if" you have some connection to a mass shooting, it will be "when"

Christian Extremism...Unfortunately It Exists

“If we lived in a righteous government, they should round them all up and put them up against a firing wall, and blow their brains out,” 

A quote from Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Idi Amin? No, this quote is directly from a sermon. Yes, you heard me correctly, a sermon given by Pastor Roger Jimenez of Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento. I have looked at the website for this church, and it looks normal enough until you begin to read. On the home page, they stay pretty tame even ending with this phrase, “We hope this website will allow you to get to know us better, and we would love to get to know you personally at one of our services.” Now, let me add something to that last sentence, these 3 words, UNLESS YOU’RE GAY! Because, ladies and gentlemen, the quote above is from a sermon delivered in response to the horrific attack in Orlando. Make no mistake! Pastor Jimenez is not calling for the murder of terrorists, not that that would be Christian either, but he is calling for the murder of all homosexuals. He goes on to “praise” the actions of Sunday’s shooter, saying that he is “glad” that “50 pedophiles” were killed. That because of the mass shooting, Orlando, Florida is safer. You can’t make this stuff up, people. I wish I was! Here’s the really scary thing, as far as I know, Verity Baptist Church is still functioning. It still has a congregation. People, Families are attending there. Children are being taught this crap as “truth!” To my knowledge, no one challenged him, no one ran from the church screaming. They all sat there and listened. At least nothing was reported to the contrary. I have said this before, and I mean it. If this is the way I have to be to call myself a Christian, then I don’t want to be a Christian! I love God! I believe God loves me and cares for me. I have seen too many things in my life that I know God brought me through. I believe Jesus died for my sins, but I refuse to believe, no matter what part of the Bible you cherry pick from that God wants to kill all homosexuals. This, my friends, is more dangerous than any gun, because this church is raising a generation of children (read more about their family integrated church) to believe that hate and killing is not only right but something God wants them to do. Hmmmmm what does that sound like? Islamist Extremism, you know the Taliban, or ISIS. The really frightening thing? No one is trying to stop this school of hate, freedom of speech and all that. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that I live in the country that I do, and I enjoy the freedoms that I do, but when I come across someone like Pastor Jimenez whose exercise of that freedom breeds hate and contempt, it scares the hell out of me. 

I Come to Thee

I sat at my desk and began to really worry about my lack of reaction to what happened today in Connecticut, and I realized it was not a lack of reaction. I am numb, almost like people are right after they hear of the death of a loved one, and they seem fine, almost normal, and it's shock, really. their bodies and minds cannot process the loss, and so they don't. The longer I sat, the heavier my heart felt, and then I began to blink away tears, and try to keep it together because I am at work, after all, and I need to answer the phones and life goes on, right? And, so, as I often do now, when something stirs an emotion in me, I write about it here on my own virtual analyst's couch.
I will not trivialize this tragic event with my ramblings of why or inane words of comfort that seem like they came off of a dime store greeting card. I cannot tell you why this happened, no one can. We could spend thousands of years trying to make some sense, and we would still be searching for an answer. Evil exists, sorrow exists, pain, fear, grief, they all exist. We will never be able to change that no matter how hard we try. I cannot fathom what these poor people are going through right now. I have never lost a living child. I did lose my first baby to a miscarriage, and that was awful, I cannot tell you how I would handle losing either one of my girls right now. I truly do not know how I would function, but I also know that if a tragic event did occur I would be surrounded by love and support and the prayers of my friends and family.
I once had to sing for the funeral of an infant who passed away at 6 months because of a tumor. It is truthfully one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. One of the songs I sang at that funeral was the classic hymn, "I Need Thee Every Hour" Today, as I sat at my desk numb, those lyrics came to me:
I need Thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord, 
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford, 
I need Thee, 
O, I need Thee, 
Every hour I need Thee, 
O, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.
No one can change what happened today. In the blink of an eye, people's lives were changed forever. The only hope I can offer is that I believe God is there for all of them, and for all of us. And as we all see these reports that we never forget how important it is to spend each day letting our children and family and friends know how much we love them.

What if you're right?

I didn't rush to write a post about the tragic events in Colorado yesterday because I knew if I did, it would be filled with anger and thoughts of revenge. When you hear of something like that happening, your first feeling is utter disbelief. Then that is quickly followed by anger, and then comes the questioning and finally we, in our humanity, have to find a reason. We have to lay blame. There will be an endless parade of speculation and analyzing in the weeks to come. Since the event took place at the midnight premier of "The Dark Knight Rises", people will draw comparison to that, especially since it has been reported that the shooter proclaimed to the police that he was "The Joker", the arch villain of Batman. People will blame our violent television shows and video games. They want to find a reason that this 24 year old boy would commit these atrocities. New crews are camped outside his parent's home hoping for some tiny thread to speculate on as to why. That's really the question we want answered, WHY? We may gain that insight where we have not been able to in events like these that have happened in the past. So many times in these shootings, after the individual has caused all the death and destruction, they turn the gun on themselves. James Holmes gave up almost willingly. No matter what theories are produced, we know one thing. Holmes' actions were not normal. What he put into motion on July 20th took planning. Lots of it! Everything he was carrying, what he wore, using tear gas, having a gas mask on, not to mention the booby-trapping of his apartment with explosives that law enforcement is still trying to figure out. We know he was smart, very smart, and seemingly normal, so what happened? That, ladies and gentleman, is the $64,000 question, and here is the answer: We don't know! We may never know. Not much comfort in that, is there? Here's the thing. The plain truth is, we don't have any control over what other people do, we only have control over ourselves. We only have control, as parents, to raise our children to be good people and know right from wrong and to have compassion for others. And yes, here's the pill that's a little hard to swallow, we have a responsibility, no, a duty to be honest with ourselves and others. Apparently when all of this hit the news yesterday, ABC news contacted the shooter's mother. Her words to them were, "You have the right person." How many times do we, as parents, friends, co-workers, see some sign, notice some behavior, just have a plain gut instinct that something isn't right, and ignore it? Rationalizing the sick feeling we have deep in the pit of our stomachs, that we are being silly, we are over-analyzing the situation. I can't call this to anybody's attention. What will people say? What if I'm wrong? What if you're RIGHT? How different would the community of Aurora be today if someone had been honest with themselves and told someone about that odd feeling they had around James Holmes?