sadness

When horrifying incidents happen I am deeply affected.

I had followed the Jonestown story closely and was impressed with the good that Jones was doing and then Boom it is all over and so many good people died. I am still not over that one.

This week's event was no less startling. These people were doing what should have been enlightening, but it was not.

Naturally we look for who or what to blame, and it is easy to make our conclusions very narrow.

Truth is that we live in an extremely violent society. There are many things that contribute to that reality. So many die in America so senselessly. The Jonestown people trusted too much, yet we do not want to take away trust. The people in Arizona trusted the safety of Safeway, and we don't want to loose that sense of trust either.

Still, there are questions of how can a clearly unbalanced person be allowed to purchase such a deadly weapon, and why do we allow weapons like this that have no possible use but for mass trouble?

I will continue to grieve, and I don't want that to stop either. Even though horrors happen regularly, we can't stop living and hoping and loving.

But, still I am saddened by the needless loss. We traded the freedom of one sad person for the massive contributions (past and future) of others.

We did not get our money's worth, and our freedom was not enhanced.