A Lament After The Texas Shooting

To Our Beloved Community,

Today news spread quickly that 15 people, 14 of them children, were murdered in yet another mass shooting.

We are moving from tragedy to tragedy, our mourning clothes left in little more than tatters.

Why can’t we get it together and value the life we’ve been so blessed to live?

Why are we unable to prioritize love and protection for our children and the most vulnerable among us?

We can no longer ask “what will it take” because we already know, yet the tragedies prove that our collective hearts and souls have yet to be truly transformed.

We have no one to look to but ourselves.

We must not squander this blessing of life we have been given.

We pray for those in grief at this moment and pledge ourselves again to the work to get us free from this seemingly never-ending cycle of tragedy.

May the divine and all that we hold sacred have mercy on our souls.

In Faith,

Christina Rivera

Aisha Hauser, MSW, CRE-ML

Rev. Dr. Michael Tino