Trying Times

When I woke up this morning I came out to the news reports of a seemingly random shooting in Aurora,Co during the midnight premier of the new Batman movie. I couldn't help but sit glued to the news …trying to find some answer for what had happened. I felt sickened and discouraged. I felt like I needed to cry. Its times like these that I am almost ashamed to be a American…a human. I was struck at eerie similarities between Jerrod Loughner and James Holmes. Both had been pulled received traffic tickets. Both had planned well ahead for maximum carnage. Both shot someone, well known, in the head.

I don't know what is happening in this world or why it is happening. As a parent, I struggle daily with a deep rooted fear that I will lose one of my own children in some horrific and senseless manner. It's all I can do to keep from sheltering them away in a cave somewhere and allowing the rest of the world to implode and destroy itself. A little part of me dies every time one of my children leaves the house and that same part that dies finds renewal when they return safe and whole. It's hard for me to feel anything but extreme anger and hatred for people like Loughner and Holmes. Who do they think they are to play God like that? I suspect that caught up in the moment, I would easily rally with others to run a full scale lynch mob. Some how "justice" could only be served by the immediate hanging death of those who seek to destroy us. Of course I would not do such a thing. However easy it may be to maintain "eye for an eye" mentality, it does nothing but create more burden where more is not needed.

I leave you with this thought: while it's hard to find good in people I am reminded that hope is still abundant when I look into the faces of my sons. While it's difficult to maintain faith in the "milk of human kindness", we are reminded that all is not lost as we gaze in the face of a newborn child or hear a child's laughter. Love still exists when we all perform "random acts of kindness" .  I know that we are a great nation and that we have seen such sorrow yet we have always stood united. We have risen like a Phoenix from the ashes to rebuild our homes, our hearts, our minds and our lives. Please, tonight as you go to sleep, count your blessings. Say a prayer for those who have lost loved ones and those who have been wounded. And, YES, say a prayer for James Holmes and his family--there is such a thing as Karma.When you struggle for answers as we all will do, remembering to remain faithful in love and kindness, keeps you aligned with the Universe.