I've been writing more often in my prayer blog lately than on here, but today's awful events bring me back into the realm of violence, theology and questions. I posted in the prayer blog about a shooting that happened in the nearby Clackamas Town Center earlier this week. Now, only a few days later we hear about a terrible tragedy in Connecticut.
Images, sound clips and heart-breaking accounts of today's events leave us feeling numb and hopeless. A steady stream of political posturing and religious rants have been flooding my Facebook news feed all day. It is sad how quickly we can manipulate a tragedy into a tool for our own agendas. We have violence towards one another in our eyes.
We have a hard time simply sighing as a nation and grieving together. We are immediately looking for someone or something to blame. (Yes, I include myself in this. I said, "we". Although I refrained from posting throughout the day, my mind went all over, too...) We have destruction in our eyes.
Tonight, though, as the reactions begin to simmer down and the soul searching begins, I am reminded that perfect love casts out fear.
