Again, in our country and in full view of the watching world, the promise of American lives has been cut short in a moment of blood and of pain. Again has someone answered the call of hatred and prejudice with the mindless retort of a spewing gun.
In this world of internet connection and growing community, another extremist has stepped forward to say “I will not seek commonality, but will instead destroy my human kin in a butcher’s barbaric slaughter.”
This is not the first time.
It may not be the last.
But the rest of us do not need to join in supporting this or any other bloody exchange on this great battlefield which we call our nation.
We can rise in body and in spirit, and speak out, saying with one voice, Enough. There will be no more.
Republican and Democrat. Liberal and Conservative. Straight and queer.
People of all color and all religions.
The old and the very young.
Wake up from this violent dream. Shake off the foolish notion that you and I and all the rest are not intimately connected through nerve and brain and heart. Your world is my world, and my world is yours. Our fates are intertwined.
Resolve on this day of shattered lives and weeping fear that we will not have great questions settled by the law of claw and tooth. Say aloud and in every place that those we love and those we respect and even those we elect cannot come to us stained with blood for our support and applause.
Say that our children will not be taken from us by violence, whether they are victor or vanquished. Attacker or attacked. Say that we will not see the future of our nation destroyed, as kindness, patience, and mercy are displaced with hatred, fear, and contempt.
Let us learn to be human first, loving our people as a whole so that the thought of injury to any one is the thought of injury to us all.
Let the whole world cry out with us: Enough. Oh God, enough.
-Rev. Amy Shaw
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