A 50-year love affair

On a day in the summer of 1972, a disk jockey at St. Petersburg, Florida's WLCY-AM (138 on your radio dial!) checked his playlist, selected a 45, and then watched as the record dropped onto the turntable and a plastic arm moved to the proper spot in order to drop the needle onto the proper groove.  (Any millennials and Gen Zer's who are confused at that above paragraph can ask their parents for a translation.)

The music that played caught the attention of an eight-year-old girl listening to the radio at home. She heard the song, she liked it, and every other time it played on WLCY, she liked it more. 

I was that eight-year-old girl in 1972. The song was "Saturday In the Park",  and it began a 50-year love affair with the rock group Chicago.

Why Chicago? Why that song? I don't know. What reason can an eight-year-old give for liking a particular song or a particular group? All I know is that it was an upbeat, happy, peppy song, the perfect song to introduce me to a new group.

The band's official website tells the story of "Saturday In the Park" as Robert Lamm coming back from New York's Central Park after seeing the steel drum players, dancers, singers and jugglers, and insisting, we have to write a song about this!

Lamm's account, recorded in Billboard magazine, tells the story this way:  "It was written as I was looking at footage from a film I shot in Central Park, over a couple of year, back in the early '70's.  I shot this film and somewhere down the line I edited it into some kind of a narrative, and as I watched the film I jotted down some ideas based on what I was seeing and had experienced.  And it was really kind of that peace and love thing that happened in Central Park and in many parks all over the world, perhaps on a Saturday, where people just relax and enjoy each other's presence, and the activities we observe and the feelings we get from feeling a part of a day like that."

Gradually, through TV appearances and my own library research, I got to know the band: Terry Kath on guitar, Peter Cetera on bass, Walter Parazaider on saxophone (and occasionally flute), Lee Loughnane on trumpet, James Pankow on trombone, and Robert Lamm on keyboard. 

When I was 13, one of my Christmas presents was Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits. Like any teenager obsessed with a band, I played it over and over until I had it memorized. And then I still kept playing it. 

I kept my eyes and ears open for any mention of Chicago on the news, on the radio, anywhere I could find them. 

So on the morning of January 24, 1978, while lying in bed and listening to the radio, I heard the words, "One of the members of the group Chicago . . ." and I smiled to myself. 

Then the next four words, " . . . has accidentally killed himself," gut-punched me. 

And that was how I learned that guitarist Terry Kath had accidentally shot himself in the head. His last words?  "Don't worry, it's not loaded."

I was devastated, much like fans are when their favorite entertainer unexpectedly dies. Robin Williams, Kurt Cobain, and Whitney Houston come to mind. 

But Chicago bounced back, with the album "Hot Streets". The band, however, was never the same after Terry Kath died. 

After a dip in popularity in the late '70's/early '80's, Chicago enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. It was then, in 1984, that a dream of mine came true:  I got to see Chicago in concert, in Tallahassee, Florida, during our homecoming week. Our tickets were in the nosebleed zone, something like row XXX. I didn't care. It was Chicago. I screamed the whole time. Now, I barely remember any of the songs they played, except the first one, "We Can Stop The Hurting," from their then-newest album, Chicago XVII; and also "Hard To Say I'm Sorry/Get Away." 

They've gone through personnel changes, musical changes, adjusted to the new world of streaming. 

In 2016, the original six members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor long overdue. 

As of this writing, they are still touring and still performing; in fact, they recently did a concert here in Atlanta with the Beach Boys. While on the one hand, I'm sorry I missed seeing them; on the other hand, there are only three original members left -- Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, and Robert Lamm. They are not the Chicago I knew as a child.

More recently, fans of the show "This Is Us" were exposed to "Saturday In the Park" when it was used in an episode called . . . "Saturday in the Park." The character of Kate Pearson used the tune of the song to help her blind child remember how to get to the park they went to on Saturdays.

They began as a group of six, 55 years ago, and today, they are still going. 

So, from a now 58-year-old woman, thank you.

Thank you, Robert Lamm, for your trip to Central Park which inspired the song you wrote.

Thank you, DJ at WLCY, 138 AM, for choosing to play "Saturday In the Park" in the summer of 1972.

And thank you, Chicago, for being a part of the soundtrack of my childhood, and for bringing an eight-year-old girl pleasure with a song about a simple but magical day in Central Park. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

 

Is this what forgiveness means?

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Or, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

No matter which way you translate it in the Lord's Prayer, forgiveness is a core doctrine of Christianity.

We're told to "forgive as the Lord forgave you" (Colossians 3:13), and even Jesus himself, on the cross, prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

When the Apostle Peter asked, "How many times should I forgive my brother? Up to seven times?" Jesus' answer -- depending on your translation -- was either "seventy-seven times" or "seventy times seven." 

In other words, if I am to call myself a follower of Christ, I cannot withhold forgiveness.  I cannot refuse to forgive someone who has hurt me or harmed me.  I admit, I often ask God, "Do I have to?" (like a six-year-old would sound) and the answer is always, "Yes." 

"Forgive," and "Do not worry," are the two commands I probably struggle with the most as a Christian. I have dealt with my share of wrongdoing, and while I do believe there are people I have forgiven, I'm not sure if the forgiveness process is complete in other areas. I don't think I have yet forgiven everyone who bullied me in school or the leaders who were spiritually abusive in college. And I'm not sure if I've forgiven mistakes my parents have made in raising me. Although now that I have a child, I find myself remembering a quote from Ray Romano: "The older I get, the more I feel the need to apologize to my mother."  My parents were human, as I am, and I believe they tried their best. There were areas I did not make that easy for them.

Here's what bugs me about the subject of forgiveness, though; or rather, the way some teachers of the Bible handle it. 

This is a version of a Facebook comment I made today. It is snarky, sarcastic, and somewhat facetious, and I admit it is extreme. I made it in response to this link to an article by preacher and abuse advocate Jimmy Hinton. His father, a Church of Christ preacher, is currently serving a lifetime prison sentence for the sexual abuse of children.  

When we Christians talk about "forgiveness", I sometimes think that what we mean is that we want the offended party to instantly forgive. Instant forgiveness means that if they say they're sorry, you say, "I've already forgiven you," and you go on as if nothing happened. That's what Jesus did with our sins, didn't He? He forgave us and he's forgotten our sins. Shouldn't we do the same?

If it's a crime against a victim who happens to be a Christian, again, I think what certain Christians want is for the victim to, again, instantly forgive the offender, stand up for them in court and support them, offer to serve the offender's sentence in his place, "because Jesus did that for me when He died on the cross.  He took my punishment so I wouldn't have to serve it." The victim should write to the offender regularly, telling them about how much God loves them. Perhaps the victim should even visit the offender regularly in prison, to show how much they have forgiven and to show how much God loves them. "If God can give me forgiveness for you, just think how much He loves you and wants to forgive you!"

When the offender gets out of prison, the victim should offer to let them live in their own home; because aren't we supposed to go the extra mile? Aren't we supposed to offer hospitality? 

If the offender is not a Christian, the victim will be the one to convert them.

If the offender is a Christian, the victim will be the one to bring the lost sheep home. 

Then they will both go before the church with the wonderful testimony about how God worked through all of that to enable the two of them to become best friends, and the victim will say, "If I had the choice, I'd go through it all again, because look at what God brought out of it!  Isn't God good?" 

Who knows? They might even team up with a famous author, get their story written and made into a Christian movie!

Okay, my snarkiness is over. 

There are cases where a Christian is sinned against, grieviously, and God has given them the strength to forgive the person who hurt them. I have heard of at least one case where -- if I remember the details correctly -- a drunk driver killed a Christian's child. That Christian was eventually able to forgive the driver and develop a relationship with them. 

Like I said before, if I am going to be a follower of Christ, forgiveness is mandatory. I cannot claim to follow Christ and hold grudges or animosity towards people who have hurt me. 

But letting go of those grudges, or the pain of a wrongdoing done against them, is not immediate. It can take years, sometimes decades. It took me two decades to forgive someone from high school who hurt me. No, it should not have taken that long, but it did. And there are hurts and grudges from childhood that yes, I admit, I still struggle to turn over to God and to let His justice work.

And in some cases of abuse, such as what Jimmy Hinton describes, it is absolutely not healthy for the victim to be around the offender. In cases of sexual abuse, it takes years of therapy with a competent therapist to get past the hurt and the damage that was done. 

It seems that in cases of abuse, nearly all of the expectation is placed on the victim to forgive. Sometimes the victim is even asked, how did you contribute to the situation? The victim is expected to quickly forgive because Jesus quickly forgave. There's one difference, though:  Jesus is the Son of God, He is perfect, and He had that ability to quickly forgive. Victims are not the Son of God. Yes, I believe in forgiveness; I believe people who have been wronged need to forgive . . . but true forgiveness has to be on the victim's timetable and not on the timetable we think it ought to be.

And where is the equal expectation for the offender to repent? Where is the equal expectation for the offender to say, "I'm sorry I hurt you," name the specific ways in which he/she harmed the victim, make restitution if possible, and show the fruits of true repentance?  Maybe one of those fruits is to honor the victim's wish to have no contact with them. 

I write this as an imperfect Christian who struggles to forgive and who prays often, "God, help me forgive.  Sometimes I don't want to but I know You command it of me. Help me." 

But does forgiveness mean that you immediately say "I forgive you," that you never, ever think about it again, and that you treat the offender as if the offense never happened? 

Maybe, in some cases, that above statement is exactly what you should do.

Maybe, in some cases, that above statement is exactly what you should not do.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

The flood that made me?

While Eastern Kentucky is known for coal, rugged and beautiful scenery, and a heritage of independent people, it is also notorious for dangerous flooding.

As I write this, 37 people have died in floodwaters pounding Eastern Kentucky counties such as Knott, Perry (with the aptly named county seat of Hazard), and Letcher. 

Harlan County, my birthplace, has largely been spared the devastation of other areas of Eastern Kentucky. That was not always true. They've dealt with many a flood in the past when the Cumberland River and its feeder forks overflowed their banks. (I wonder if the river was thinking, hey, when you have more rain than you can hold, what do you expect us to do with it?)

After a 100-year flood in 1977, Harlan County had had enough. And over the next years, they built a flood control system that involved, among other things, the rerouting of certain areas of the Cumberland River. So far, in this 2022 flood, it seems to be working.

But before that 100-year flood, Harlan County struggled through its battle with floodwaters. 

Mid-March, 1963, was one of those battles.  It was a week where it rained, and the riverbanks overflowed, and people either had to evacuate due to rising floodwaters or stay in the house because they couldn't go anywhere unless it was by boat. One of my Facebook friends, writer Karen Nolan, remembers getting typhoid shots during that time. 

I've seen pictures of Harlan County floods, of cars that were washed downstream and wound up on Main Street stacked next to each other, of water that reached roof level, of people who have lost everything. 

There was one benefit to that flood, though.

I didn't know until a few years ago that there had been a flood in Harlan in March of 1963.  I'd seen a photo of a flood in Hazard from that time but didn't know it had hit Harlan as well. 

Exactly seven months from that week of rain, water, mud, and destruction . . . I was born.

And I was a preemie.

When I learned that a flood had hit Harlan in March of 1963, and I did the math, I thought, this flood was possibly responsible for my conception. After all, if you can't go anywhere due to water . . . 

(I will say this:  Although my parents' house was not too far from the Cumberland River, it was on a hilltop and, to the best of my knowledge, the water did not come high enough to do major damage. My family was lucky. They did not suffer the losses that so many other families did.)

Right now, so many Eastern Kentuckians have lost so much. It's possible that the death toll will rise from this 2022 flood. Coming back from this flood will take time and energy, and I wonder if some Kentuckians think that rebuilding their lives will take more energy than they have right now. 

Right now is a time to reach a hand out, donate, pray, check on any family in the area. 

But maybe, just maybe, in about nine months -- or maybe a little sooner -- this flood might yield a tiny crop of blessings. 

After all, at least one blessing came from a 1963 flood!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

When Queen (no, not Elizabeth!) ruled the world

Freddie Mercury's doctor advised him not to perform that day. Mercury had a sore throat and he would likely do damage to his vocal cords. 

Instead, on Saturday, July 13, 1985, Freddie Mercury defied the doctor's orders, strutted on stage with his band, Queen, and delivered the performance of a lifetime.

It's since been said that for those 20 minutes, a different Queen ruled England.

***

I did not watch the Live Aid concert in July 1985.  I remember passing by the TV room in my college dorm and seeing that it was on TV, but all I knew about it was that it was a benefit concert for famine relief and that Phil Collins was going to perform in London and then hop the Concorde so he could also play the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia.

So when the movie Bohemian Rhapsody came out, which focused on Queen's performance at London's Live Aid concert, and also purported to tell Freddie Mercury's life story, I thought, "What's the big deal?" I have not seen Bohemian Rhapsody, but I have read 1) the movie is rife with inaccuracies about Mercury's life, and 2) Rami Malek delivered a fantastic performance worthy of the Oscar he won. 

Then I stumbled across this reaction video from the YouTube channel Jamel AKA Jamal. Reaction videos are videos where a person, or more than one person, listens and reacts to a piece of music they've never heard before. Most reaction videos are from millennials listening to '60's and '70's music for the first time. (I love Jamal. Here's his channel.) 

He did a reaction video of Queen's Live Aid concert .  . . and I watched . . . and I was fascinated. 

I got even more fascinated when watching this video about why Queen were so good that day.

What I took away from both videos were:

• They were a tight, professional band that had performed together for years.
• Since they'd performed together for years, they knew each other's ins and out. They'd know what to do if Brian May hit a wrong note on his guitar or if Freddie Mercury forgot a lyric.
• They'd rehearsed knowing that they'd only have 20 minutes to perform, and that there'd be a tight turnaround time. So when it was their time to go, they had to be ready to go. 

By the mid-1980's, Queen supposedly had seen their heyday. They'd ruled the charts in the '70's with "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Another One Bites the Dust," and who hasn't done a stomp-stomp-clap to "We Will Rock You"? But in 1985? They were still touring and still recording, but the shine from the '70's was gone.

And then Bob Geldof issued the invitation:  Will you perform at Live Aid? 

They said yes.

Unlike what the movie Bohemian Rhapsody says, Freddie Mercury may or may not have been ill with HIV/AIDS on the day of Live Aid. His diagnosis was not announced until the day before his death. 

Maybe the sore throat he had was because of HIV. Maybe it was just a regular sore throat.

But when the doctor said, "Don't sing," Freddie said, "No way," (or maybe he told the doctor something similar in more colorful language), and went on stage at 6:41 p.m. London time.

When he hit the first notes of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the piano and sang the first, "Mama . . ." he had the crowd immediately in the palm of his hand. The crowd became a sea of humanity, waving their arms and singing along with the familiar lyrics. 

From there, Mercury and the band launched into "Radio Ga Ga," "Hammer to Fall," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions."  

Between "Radio Ga Ga" and "Hammer to Fall", Mercury had some fun with the crowd, leading them in a singalong of "Ay-oh!" Back and forth Mercury went with his audience, and his final note has since become known as "The Note Heard Round The World"

For those 20 minutes, although guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bassist John Deacon provided the music -- including blistering solos by Brian May -- Freddie Mercury, his body drenched in sweat, held the stage and held the audience. 

By the end, even if you had wanted to, if you had been in that 72,000 Wembley Stadium crowd, you could not have resisted doing a stomp-stomp-clap, singing back at the stage, "We will, we will rock you!" and joining in with the chorus of "We Are the Champions". 

The camera caught a mesmerized audience swaying back and forth under an hypnotic spell. 

Their 22-minute reign ended around 7 p.m. London time, with Mercury's final "We are the champions . . . of the worrrrlllllddd!" 

Champions of the world, indeed!

And as if weren't that enough, he and Brian May came back with an encore, not a hard-rock, high-energy set like they'd just performed, but a ballad asking "Is This the World We Created?" which brought the audience back to the reason for the whole Live Aid concert in the first place: the hungry mouths that needed to be fed. 

When Freddie Mercury died on November 24, 1991, the world lost a consummate showman and talented musician. 

I'm just sorry it took me 37 years to figure it out.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

A hero's death, a heroine's life

Today will be the funeral of a hero.

It should also be a salute to a heroine.

On June 24, I opened my Facebook feed and braced myself for the posts both celebrating and decrying the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Instead, I found at the top of my feed a post from Hayley Waldron, saying that her husband Harrison had died. Harrison's parents attended my church for several years. They've been missionaries both in Mexico and now in Honduras.

Harrison was 30. Hayley is 29.

They were married in 2014, right out of college, and at the time, I thought, "Isn't Harrison a little young to be getting married?"  (Bear in mind, I was a week shy of 30 when I got married. :-) )

Fourteen months after their marriage, on August 14, 2015, Harrison and Hayley took a trip for a friend's wedding.  While there, Harrison was involved in an ATV accident that left him with a devastating brain injury. At the time, Harrison's parents posted that they needed a miracle from God.

I'm sure the miracle everyone would have liked would have been for Harrison to be totally, physically healed. 

God, in His sovereignty, did not grant that miracle.

Instead, He gave us two people that showed the world around them, this is how you faithfully follow Christ in the midst of severe trial and hardship. 

Harrison would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair and would communicate with an iPad. Through that iPad, he would tell Hayley that he loved her. 

Hayley would spend the rest of Harrison's life loving him well. 

She also went back to school and became a nurse. 

I don't know if Harrison and Hayley would refer to themselves as "heroes". 

But there are those who, in their circumstances, would retreat into themselves and build up a wall of self-pity and resentment. (I know myself well enough to know that I'd be tempted to do just that.) 

From what I read of Harrison and Hayley, they did not do that. 

Yes, they had their struggles. They had struggles that many young couples do not have: health struggles, financial struggles, a struggle to find a niche when their lives turned upside down. 

They also had a God who did not leave them and whom they would not leave. 

Harrison endured to the end. I believe that when God saw him, he told him, "Well done, good and faithful servant." That's why I call him a hero.

Hayley, his partner in life, held true to her vow to be faithful "till death us do part". She exercised her faithfulness in her doing for Harrison and in her love for him. That's why I call her a heroine.

Today, Harrison will be laid to rest. His family and his friends will speak of him, tell memories of his life, and say goodbye. 

Today, Hayley begins her journey without her husband. She will cry at times and maybe she will even be angry at God and shake her fist at Him. 

And I also believe that she will remember the faithfulness of God.

So as we remember a hero today, let's also remember the heroine. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

The power of memory through buildings

Robb Elementary School, the Uvalde, Texas school that was the site of a horrific shooting, will meet the wrecking ball. 

Uvalde’s mayor, Don McLaughlin, said, “You can never ask a child to go back or a teacher to go back in that school ever.” 

Years earlier, Sandy Hook Elementary, the scene of another horrific massacre, was also demolished.

I can understand why. Who can walk into a building where you witnessed wholesale slaughter and act like everything is back to normal? 

You can’t.

I’ve never been a victim of a shooting, nor have I witnessed one. 

I can, however, tell you of my experience with a building where I experienced abuse.

It was a church building in Tallahassee, Florida. I was baptized in their baptistry on November 11, 1981, at age 18. For five years, from the ages of 18 to 23, I attended church in that building at least three to four times a week, excluding vacations from school.

To this day, I can still visualize the place as it looked in the 1980’s: the front door, which I didn’t use very often because it faced the street but not a parking lot, the side door that did lead to the sanctuary; the back door that led to the fellowship hall and to a staircase that would take you to the sanctuary. I can wander through that building in my mind and picture events that went on there, times we sang, the folding chairs we sat on in the fellowship hall — or the times we sat on the floor during our Friday night devotionals. 

I can remember the downstairs hallway where the nursery was on one side and the classrooms for the older kids were on the other. I’ve been in those classrooms, holding babies or trying to corral kids during children’s church.

Upstairs, I sat through sermon after sermon; Sunday School lesson after Sunday School lesson; special speakers, retreats, weddings, and other events. 

I was never raped in that building, nor did anyone physically assault me there. 

But I was subject to spiritual abuse there: listened to sermons and classes where we were pushed to do more, where “the spiritual” were defined as those who converted the most people, those who worked full-time for the church, and/or those that chose to give up everything for missions. If you did not have the numbers, you were second-class. 

We took away lessons from that building that said, go invite total strangers to church; go knock on people’s doors and invite them to a church service or a Bible study; submit to your leaders, do not question why they are doing what they are doing and do not argue with them. You must have a discipleship partner and confess everything to them. You must have a “quiet time” daily where you study the Bible and pray and you need to be ready to tell your discipleship partner what you were studying. If you’re not doing it every day, the partner is allowed to “speak the truth in love” with a loud, harsh voice asking you if you really love God, because if you did, you would be inviting people and having your daily “quiet times”. 

I left Tallahassee for good in 1986, and I went back to that building at least once. 

The last time I visited that building was 1994. I was 30 years old. 

I didn’t enter the building; it was during a weekday and I’m sure the doors were locked. But I walked around the building, in the back parking lot where I climbed out of the car of whoever was giving me a ride that day, past the windows that let light into the sanctuary, past the back door that led to the fellowship all, past the parking area near the Red Cross building next door.

And then I got to the front of the building . . . and my legs started to shake. I could not move them. I was close to the church office, and part of my fear was wondering, is there anyone there that knew me when I was a member here? And if there is, would they recognize me? 

I tried to make myself walk in front of the building.

I could not.

In order to walk in front of that church building, I had to cross the street. And even then, my legs still shook. My body remembered what had happened to me as the result of attending that church — the demands to share your faith, to attend every event, including baby and bridal showers and weddings of people you didn’t know, being rebuked for not being “out of yourself”, the constant probing for sin, the dating rules which included mandatory double dating and, I suspect, being told who you should and shouldn’t date. And if you were a woman, you were “encouraged” to accept a date, even if you weren’t too crazy about the guy who was asking you out.

All of this was done in the name of God. 

Spiritual abuse is very hard to describe. Everything I listed above — quiet times, dating, relationships, sharing your faith — are good things. Pursuing a relationship with God is a good thing. Getting to know Jesus is a very good thing. 

But infuse it with the demands to perform in a certain way, with the expectation to become someone’s idea of what a Christian should be, and these very good things then become weaponized. 

I finally walked in front of the church, even though I had to cross the street to do it, said my good-byes to it, and caught a city bus back to the hotel I was staying at. 

I had this reaction to a building where I was never physically assaulted, never raped, never shot or shot at, and never saw anyone assaulted or shot. 

Can you imagine the reaction that the people present at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022 would have if they went back to the building where their classmates and their teachers were shot and killed? Where a student smeared herself with blood and played dead to keep from being shot? Where police waited for nearly an hour before going in? 

If I had to cross a street with shaking legs to pass a building where I was not physically assaulted but only subject to spiritual abuse, I can only imagine the reaction that anyone present at Robb Elementary on that horrible day would have. 

The power of a building to evoke memory is palpable.

I don’t blame Uvalde for wanting to get rid of Robb Elementary.

Just my. 04, adjusted for inflation.

When is it going to stop?

 I had hoped and planned to write a blog entry about the final episode of This Is Us, and I may do that at some other point.

Today, my heart is too heavy to share those thoughts.

Instead, I find myself with a heart broken for 21 families in Uvalde, Texas, a place that until yesterday I only knew as the birthplace of entertainer Dale Evans and hometown of US Vice President John Nance Garner (who famously described the office of Vice President as “a bowl of warm spit”.)

As I understand the story, the 18-year-old shooter crashed his car in the parking lot of Uvalde’s Ross Elementary School, and then — dressed in body armor, like the shooter in Buffalo 10 days (?!) ago — ran into the school, barricaded himself into a fourth grade classroom, and started shooting. 

Nineteen children in that classroom died. So did both of their teachers. 

It took an off-duty Border Patrol agent to stop the killing.  At the risk of his own life, he ran into the school and shot the shooter. The agent was wounded.

In order to identify the bodies, parents had to be swabbed for DNA because the bodies were so riddled with bullets that it was possible the parents would not recognize them. 

Last night, Joe Biden, angry and heartbroken, demanded to know, when are we going to put a stop to all this carnage?

I have two simple words, Mr. President:

We aren’t. 

My son was two months old when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold ran into Columbine High school and murdered 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves in the school library. 

He turned 23 in February. 

Nothing has changed. 

We “lather, rinse, repeat” with our “thoughts and prayers”, give ideas about what we should do, yell at each other on social media (and sadly, I have seen Christians do this to each other) . . . and then it all dies down until the next mass shooting.

According to an article at newsnationnow.com, the US has had more than 200 mass shootings so far this year. Their statistics come from the Gun Violence Archive.  The Gun Violence Archive (at gunviolencearchive.org) defines “mass shooting” as “four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter.” There is no one accepted definition of  “mass shooting”, and the GVA website mentions that even the FBI does not define “mass shooting”. 

I don’t have the energy right now to figure out how many mass shootings have happened between Columbine and now, how many hundreds of people killed, wounded, traumatized for life.  I’m selfishly glad that my son is no longer in school. But he works in a supermarket. The Buffalo shooter shot up a supermarket. My family attends church weekly. One of the most recent mass shootings happened in a church in California. And I can think of at least two or three more that happened in churches. 

Last night, Joe Biden demanded to know when we were going to stand up to the gun lobby. 

In 1968, when Robert Kennedy lay on an operating table after being shot in the head, ABC broadcaster Howard K. Smith made editorial comments about gun control and about how powerful the gun lobby was. 

That was 54 years ago.

Nothing has changed. 

The gun lobby remains as powerful as ever. 

British columnist Dan Hodges commented on Twitter in 2015 that Sandy Hook marked the end of the gun control debate. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.” 

I am at the end of my rope. Like a counselor friend of mine has said, I’m exhausted. I do not want to be fearful when I go to church or to a grocery store. 

But as long as “my freedom,” “my liberty”, and “my rights” are trumpeted over our responsibility to society at large — especially its most vulnerable members, the children, elderly, and disabled — we will see this happen over and over again. 

This morning, I listened to a Christian radio station waiting for the top of the hour news update. The song playing asked, did God move every mountain? Yes, he did. So he can. 

And all I could think of was how hollow that must ring in the ears of the 21 families whose children and loved ones will not come home, ever again; whose resting place will be underneath a gravestone or in a columbarium, or in scattered ashes. 

When, dear God, does it stop? 

When will Rachel stop weeping for her children? 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.