Blood Spilt

Blood Spilt      1-22-2014

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Too often it fills the news.  We hear of the tragedies in New Town, Sandy Hook, and Boston.  Terrible things happening in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Georgia and New Mexico.  But when the bullets strikes in Elkhart or Purdue University – then….  For though we earnestly feel for the victims and their families introduced to us by the media, when the places and faces become familiar our discomfort rises.  Our mind wraps around, “How could something like this happen here….”  We feel vulnerable, when realizing we are not immune to the illness that invades the lives of the innocents.

For the plague is not bound to “far away”, only to touch others.  And each time it rears its head and attacks, be it near or far, it assaults us all.  This is not someone else’s problem – it is our problem, whether the places and names are unfamiliar or is our home and kin.  It matters little, to the harmed, if injury is driven by disease or rage.  Has the value of human life diminished so much?  Do we no longer see the faces and understand life’s sanctity?  It seems to some that is indeed the case.

How can we respond?  Is there something we can do?  It seems love and respect the key.  Understanding one another, tolerance of different views, to care first for others, before our own needs.  Simple things – but most difficult. 

For sadly we live in an imperfect world.  Sadly there are those that feel violence the only solution.  Sadly kindness is not always returned, yet it seems, anger begets anger.   

It is not enough to pray for justice – pray for the end of the madness that permeates our world.  Pray for the end of violence that threatens the young. Pray for the end of this senseless growing pool of blood spilt!  

(310 Words)