This has been a tough week for America. This is a country which is beloved by its residents, not necessarily for what it is but for the potential of what it can be. And when we achieve that potential, our pride blossoms and we grow evermore confident in this continuing experiment. But a week like this past one has the opposite effect – we are disheartened with the ugliness that creeps in from the edges and spreads its spoilage and rancor to other parts of the society.

Two shootings tell the same story. One shooting in Utah, a politically motivated assassination of someone who was there to exercise his first amendment right to free speech (no matter how divisive that speech may be). The other shooting at a high school in a rural suburb of Denver, CO, with two kids injured and the shooter (another kid) dead. This excludes the five other mass shootings in the US (in Tampa, San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago, and Santa Ana) that left 4 dead and 22 injured. All in just one week. Some of you heard a lot about the Charlie Kirk assassination. Some of your heard about the Colorado shooting. Likely few of you have heard about the 26 other lives directly affected by gun violence – in just one week. Because it has been normalized. Because we kinda expect this stuff at this point. One political end of our says we must change, but has no path to do so. The other political end declares it to be the price we pay for 2nd amendment rights (something our founding fathers never imagined).

We are unmoored as a society when violence is advocated or normalized. And when the response to these senseless acts is more violent rhetoric, the battle for the country’s potential becomes further from view. In response to being beaten with no one held accountable, and the city of Los Angeles rioting in response, Rodney King (not a leader, just a guy) said “Can we all just get along?” His plea then applies equally to our circumstances today. Can we?

And the national disgrace continues…