We are Orlando

On Sunday June 12, 2016 a prayer card came up front amongst the typical requests for a loved one's healing or travel plans, a card that asked me to pray for the 50 victims of an event called the worst mass shooting in US history.

As this event had happened early Sunday morning, the news had not reached me before this brief explanation sent up front for pastoral prayer.

This kind of surprise used to happen to me with regularity. You see, I really detest following the news, as I find it voyeuristic and overwrought. For years my family and friends would try to keep me abreast of topics they thought I should know before being surprised in just this type of manner on Sunday morning.

But in recent years, I have typically kept up with current trends via social media, whether interested or not, as I do enjoy seeing what's going on in my friends' lives, and the news flows with it.

As I returned to social media in the next hours and days after this most recent tragedy, I found the typical diverse reactions to the latest. Protests at calling it the worst mass shooting for example, by friends of color remembering Wounded Knee and other massacres. Complaints about how the President handled his response, reactions from every politician in and out of office, calls for gun control, calls against gun control, calls for silence in solidarity, complaints against only silence. Concerns for gays and Muslims. Complaints against gays and Muslims.

You name it, I've seen it on my news feed posted by my diverse list of friends and the masses.

I used to simply not watch the news, as I objected to its point of view.

As I see the flowing comments, many of them I abhor, I wonder what is my proper response? Not only to this tragedy, but to my friends?

I could unfriend everyone whose posts I disagree with, which would leave a short list indeed, not because I think actually disagree with everyone, as much as I'm not sure these responses are productive.

About now if you've managed to read this far, you wonder what I think is the alternative. So do I.

I do believe we have forgotten the Psalmist's art of lament, or as Paul put it, how to mourn with those who mourn. We rush to judge and blame, not just the perpetrator, but the victim, the system, whatever we can blame.

We want to control the world, so we assign blame to be certain it doesn't happen to us. If we can pin it on someone, we can keep ourselves safe.

Because the very last thing we would ever want to do is admit that all of us are capable of great tragedy. There but by the grace of God, go I.

I offer no solutions. But I lament the fallen, and the bereaved, and the instigator of this evil. For just as "We are Orlando" means we all share in this loss, so it also means we all share in this violence.

Lord show us a way to peace. Hold our hands in this darkness. Bring us home where light shines, for all of us.