Like so many other Americans, I woke up early on Sunday,
June 12th to a news alert about mass killings in Orlando, Florida. I mourn with the families of the victims,
although I did not know either the victims or any of the families. In an underlying spiritual way, I can think
of them as family and friends because I am conscious of the unfolding and unspoken
experiences in the journey of my own human experience; a journey which only my
Maker fully understands. Therefore, as I
approach the twilight of my human existence, I am increasingly reminded of my
connectedness to others, even those that I might have felt the urge to abhor at
certain points in my life.
To say that I am frustrated by the frequent spate of
murderous violence by gun-wielding haters in the United States would be an
understatement. Of course I am
frustrated by the level of violence around the world and I have written about
that reality in many countries, including the land of my birth, but that is not
what this article is about. Nor is it
about the degree of my frustration, or even about me. It is instead about the United States and our
unwillingness to stem the tide of the spiral of violence in this country.
In a country where we emphasize our collective identity
and our strongly held belief in choice, as well as its associated consequences,
it is increasingly baffling to understand why incidents like this should not be
considered within the context of our collective choice and consequences. Incident after incident, President Obama
addresses the country and begs our nation to support him in restricting access
to assault weapons. Each time, we reject
his pleas and choose to allow deafening megaphones to be turned up against him
from our homes, streets, churches and legislatures across our country -
including our U.S. Congress. We do that
despite knowing that the next mass shooting is around the corner and the death
toll might be higher than the one that just occurred. The consequences of our collective choice are
always the same: another incident of mass killings by assault weapons, then media
lights that shine on the new city and the mourners for a week or so; and then
we move on and forget.
As I have followed the news reports, it has been
difficult to maintain a steady state of emotions without asking questions that
I know I will ask again and again until we give up on our collective amnesia.
How is it that an American can go into an American club and carry out such an
assault on innocent people who did not know him and were not at war with him?
Why is it that he would send them to their graves so prematurely just because
he could? How is it that in so short a
time after the incident, supposedly religious people of faiths including mine were
applauding the killings and trying to justify such a dastardly act through
religious lenses that are warped at best?
How is it that we can go to bed and wake up every morning knowing that
this too shall pass and also knowing that nothing will be done legislatively to
stop the next mass gun killings? How is
it that we can even think that emphasizing that the location of the mass
murders was (is) a gay club makes it alright for one of us to go there and kill
our brothers and sisters who God made in His own image - just like every one of
us? I am inclined to state the fact that Pulse wasn't just a gay club and that many of the victims were not even gay but what does that even matter? How is it that we can avoid grieving
as a nation when so much of the rest of the world recognizes the hurt and
grieves over what has happened here? How is it that so many of us act as if the
power of life and death is in our hands?
How is it that we can act and speak as if we have been granted the right
to determine who belongs or does not belong in heaven? How did our world get to this place where man
now seems to believe that God was wrong when He said: "I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy"? Or that
Paul was wrong when he said that if righteousness was based on the law, then
Christ’s death was in vain.
In all of this, I have become convinced that our world's
biggest and toughest blight is our hatred for others who do not fit the mold
that we prescribe. We argue over assault weapons despite knowing that their only purpose is to kill. Yet, we must have them because we are so full of hatred toward others and we want to be able to kill them when we decide to. We hate when we
should love and we become arrogant when we should be humble and compassionate. We judge when we shouldn't, then we hate even
more. In our judgment, arrogance and
hatred, we diminish the value of others and fail to realize that God made them
as they are. So we refuse to accept that
it is God’s choice (not ours) to have a place for His children in His mansion
and that God will do that regardless of what we feel are their moral failings
because morality is not righteousness and righteousness is not morality.
Today, tomorrow and every day for the foreseeable future,
media lights will continue to shine on Orlando - until most of the murdered
victims are buried, or until the next mass gun killings. At this moment, I am concerned about what
happens when the lights go out. I am
concerned because I know that this incident will again fade from our collective
consciousness because that is what always happens. When lights go out is when the true character of a person or society comes through. On this fact, we have not been at our possible best as a society. May I never forget Orlando, even when the lights
go out.
