A Mindful Debatefeatured

This weekend most of us have heard about the mass shootings that occurred in Texas & Ohio. In the United States alone, 253 mass shootings have happened this year. Each time it happens more innocent people are added to the list of fatalities, when they otherwise could’ve spent their lives living and surrounded by the ones they love.

My heart really goes out to the victims and their families. People should not have to be forced to give up their lives so that other’s can debate or seek to understand why gun control is important. One has to wonder how many people have to be tragically ripped away from their families before the system chooses to change what isn’t working.

A moment’s hesitation has often left me at the front line,
Suited in armor and as a spectator of a waging war.
Do I stay and fight for the freedom of truth?
Ricocheting linguistic shrapnel into the crevices of human flesh.
Or accept the happenstance which allowed me to contemplate?
Teetering silently on the sideline as others lay down their lives.
Hear me as a Warrior,
I refuse to be a peon in this selfish game.
✞

What kind of culture are we creating for ourselves and our children when the normalization of death becomes relevant? Is this really what we choose to aspire to? There will always be people who will be fixated on their own perspective. But why is there such a resistance for both sides to meet in the middle? As if finding common ground, to save the lives of others, ever created such an intolerable level of dissonance in which we innately believed in a failure to compromise.

Light & Love,
– H ♥