July 22, 2016

Today I realized that I’ve been avoiding expressing myself about all the violence in the world this past month (and year and several years). When I returned to my rented room in San Francisco this evening after volunteering at the food pantry all day, I got a New York Times alert that there was a mass shooting in Munich then I opened my email to an art exhibit in memory of Philando Castile and I wept. I wept and wept and wept. I could not stop weeping. Perhaps I’m not avoiding expressing myself because I have nothing to say about such senseless violence other than it is senseless. Perhaps all I can express at the moment is tears. I am not trying to get out of my responsibility of speaking out against violence; I do speak out and will continue to speak out against violence. It’s just that today I realized there is a place for tears, a time for weeping and this is one of those times. Jesus wept (John 11:35).