A Blind and Toothless World

The Fathers told us that justice demands an eye for an eye.

But willful blindness has brought us here.

A place where we can only see what separates us from one another.

Any life taken is a world destroyed.
A family shattered.
A community shaken and fearful.
United and divided by fear.

The Fathers told us that justice demands an eye for an eye.

Look how we have been taught to fear one another.
Look how we have amplified our differences, even as we teach our children that we are all human.

What are they learning from our fear and anger?
What are they learning from our silence?

The body count grows in proportion to our loss of vision.

The Fathers also told us that we are each responsible for saving our own part of the world. 

Not all of it, they said. Just your part.

Expand your part of the world to where the edges touch my part of the world.

Open your blind eyes and light your lamp from mine.

Don't wring your hands.
Don't send thoughts and prayers to another victim whose name and face will join the list of those lost to fear.

Live as if you are unafraid.
Embrace this time and make a choice to love above your fear.

We are unified at the beginning of our lives and again at the end. Our work between those days is to guide the world toward justice.

Toward fully open eyes.