As we wake up this morning on a day dedicated to love, whether it is romantic love or just as importantly the love of neighbor or stranger, we hear of another terrible shooting, this time on a college campus in Michigan. Three are dead, five wounded, and the man who killed also took his own life. And our minds travel back to another terrible Valentine’s day in Parkland, Florida, that took the lives of 17 other young people.
When will this end, we ask ourselves, when? The dawning of this day is not supposed to be like this. We want to bask in chocolates, flowers, even maudlin expressions of love, not of terror and mourning. Of course, this was probably not the only shooting yesterday that created pitiful cries of despair and grief. There are probably many more.
This season, as we are being pulled toward Lent, a season of reflection, we must push our so-called leaders in Congress to do more than the small pittance of legislation on gun violence passed after Uvalde and Buffalo. We look at the dawning sky and pray that on this say we will be able to show our love for others by ending gun violence.
Prayer for the Day
The cry of mothers and fathers resound in our ears, O God,
As they learn of their children massacred this past night;
It is not so far from the cry of parents throughout this land
As they hear of their children murdered by gunfire
Free us, O God, from our insane dependence on guns,
And save us from politicians beholden only to blood money.
In the name of the One who comforts those who mourn,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
This is a uniquely American problem.
- Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan, where shooting occurred
Doubtless [gun regulation], embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society….but Bruen forecloses any such analysis….Through that lens, we conclude that [gun prohibition for persons convicted of domestic violence] is an “outlier that our ancestors never would have accepted.”
- United States v. Rahimi, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
Give ear to my words, O Lord, give heed to my sighing
Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, to you I pray.
O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
In the morning I plead my case to you and watch.
Psalm 5: 1-3