Things are out of whack

There are no words. The world seems to be collapsing around us. Thursday we awoke to one of the most terrifying hail storms I’ve experienced in 50 years in Texas. Today we woke to the news of the attacks in Brussels, a lovely city in a peaceful country. For those of us in North Texas, the news got even worse: the wife of the Van Cliburn-winning pianist probably suffocated her daughters and stabbed herself; a man went into a WalMart in East Texas, shot another man and then shot himself. When does the violence end? How do we cope with it?

Brussels is rightfully the tragedy most on our minds. Can you imagine sending someone you love off to work—or travel—only to learn that they’ve been killed in a suicide bomb explosion? On an ordinary day when you expected the world to go on as it always has? The mind boggles. On 9-11, Belgians held hands in support of America; today we pray in support of them. I am proud of America’s reaction but scared by the response of the two leading Republican candidates. Neither learned from the Bush’s trumped up (no, not a pun) war in Iraq. They would willingly lead us into such another futile war, sacrificing thousands of people in Middle Eastern countries as well as our own troops. It didn’t work before, and it won’t work again. I am afraid of the war-mongering mentality more than I am afraid of ISIS..

For Christians, this is Holy Week, the most sacred time of the year. I write as a Christian who feels this holy time has been defiled. But I am also convinced that we must keep the faith and believe. No, it won’t bring back the people who died today, nor will it heal the injured. But faith—whatever your chosen religion—seems to me the answer. I pray for the Muslims in this country who now live in fear. If my understanding is correct, the Muslim faith calls for peace, not violence It doesn’t sanction beheading stoning, etc. Yet people preying on the fear of Americans have made terrorists of all Muslims in this country. Do you know how many there are? Fifty thousand in Houston alone; an astounding number in the entire world. As one Facebook post said tonight, if they were all terrorists, we’d all be dead. We must stand by our Muslim neighbors and friends and also our friends of color who are under attack if not suspicion now.

Pray for our friends and neighbors, pray for the world, pray for this country. Things are really out of whack right now. And I for one am grieving.