There were two mass shootings the day after Christmas. The first was in Rockford, Illinois where a man came into a bowling alley with a gun, shot and killed three senior citizens, and wounded three other people. The gunman was a 37-year old Army Sergeant based in Florida. It remains unclear as to why he was in Illinois and killed those people. The second mass shooting was in Lynn, Massachusetts. A group of people were making a music video when someone came up to them and started shooting. One person died and five were wounded. It is unbelievable that these two events happened right after Christmas.
We need to understand the spiritual consequences of allowing this kind of violence to go on. You expect that your loved ones will be safe, however, tragedy can strike and they can end up getting shot and killed. The spiritual consequences are totally devastating. What is life worth when you can die at any moment like that? What is life worth when you know that somebody can come along and just kill the person you love? All of a sudden, the person you love is dead and you’re all alone to face your grief and pain. This has to stop. It’s not something we can live with and it’s not something we should have to live with. We need to educate people about what it means to be living in a society where this kind of thing happens too often. It undermines the meaning of life. Losing someone you love in a murder spree calls everything into question. You start to rethink things like the value of life or your faith in God. You might begin to ask, “What kind of God would allow this to happen?” or “How can I continue worshipping Him?” We need to have some kind of outreach educational team to make people really understand what this means spiritually because I don’t think most people do. They know it can happen, but they don’t think about it further than that. It’s understandable that people may not want to think about their loved ones suddenly dying, but it’s necessary. We have to think about it and do something about it. That this cannot be tolerated and we need to face things head on. We cannot continue living in a society where you can get shot at any moment. We should not have to live with the fact that our loved ones can be gone within a matter of minutes just from an act of hate. We need to first understand this kind of hate and then try to stop it. We need to tell angry people that it’s not worth it to act out of frustration and that they need to find help. We need to remind them that there is a better way to live and that they don’t have to go out and shoot people. We need to get this message across and overall, we need to become a more compassionate and caring society. We cannot let the value of love and life be called into question like this. We cannot let these things be thrown away. Life and love are the two most valuable things. We need to defend ourselves and speak out against hate by letting people know that hate is wrong, no matter justified they think it is, no matter how much they have suffered, no matter how unloved they have felt. Nobody has a right to kill, but we all have a right to love, to live our lives, and to do good work in the world. We should not have to live in fear that our lives might get cut short at any moment from a bullet. Mass shootings are destroying our souls. It’s as if we’re not safe anywhere. What is our country worth if we can't even feel safe?