As of 27 April 2019, 16,622 violent incidents using guns have occurred with 4,382 persons killed. Lives lost. And that doesn’t include those who take their own lives.
This is the last day of Passover, the end of the first week of Easter, the eve of Pascha(Orthodox Easter Day at Sundown Saturday) and violence and hate are what we see on websites, television, and in newsprint. You are not us. We are not them. The guns fire, backpacks explode, knives and words attack all those who are not us.
Social media has become more isolation media. We see the stories, we see the messages but do we hear the sounds of our neighbor laughing, see a baby struggling to take the first step, or the first realization pureed mangoes taste good? Do we gather together to live the change to make the world we live in a better place? Even these scribbles are separate and apart unless we reach out and work to change what seems to be a perverted and very evil norm of separation.
On Easter day I reminded the congregation of our baptisms. I soaked them remembering our washing and marking as a person of God. In this action, is the assurance that we are love and change. When the evil of fear and hate, the belief we are powerless, the jealousy of wealth and privilege overwhelms us and the world, we are empowered to be agents of change. When 259 die in Sri Lanka or 17 in Florida, we see what is broken and live the difference, not just with thoughts and prayers but by changing ourselves, our nation, our world.
We were made, human. Whether we like it or not; not White, not Hispanic, Asian, Indian, not Black or Brown, or any other term that separates us, we are just human.
Let we humans go out and spread the news to all. To live as a community is change and hope for our future, our life, our world.
