October 2: Las Vegas Mass Shooting, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, "26"

I have no words today after the mass shooting in Las Vegas last night.  It's news that shouldn't be familiar.  I shouldn't feel numb to innocent people shot dead in the United States.  Yet, how else can a person react in a country and culture that seems to foster this kind of senseless violence.

I know Congress will do nothing in reaction to this tragedy.  Or the President of the United States. 

So this afternoon, Saint Marty turns to poetry to find some kind of truth that makes sense.  A poem written after the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary.

 26

by:  Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Your names toll in my dreams.
I pick up tinsel in the street. A nameless god
streaks my hand with blood. I look at the lighted trees
in windows & the spindles of pine tremble
in warm rooms. The flesh of home, silent.
How quiet the bells of heaven must be, cold
with stars who cannot rhyme their brilliance
to our weapons. What rouses our lives each moment?
Nothing but life dares dying. My memory, another obituary.
My memory is a cross. Face down. A whistle in high grass.
A shadow pouring down the sill of calamity.
Your names wake me in the nearly dark hour.
The candles in our windows flicker
where your faces peer in, ask us
questions light cannot answer.

November 7: My Business, Worry Wednesday, Mixed Bag

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned.  "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's.  Mine occupies me constantly.  Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

You may be wondering why I chose such a self-centered, negative quote from Ebenezer Scrooge on this, the morning after Barack Obama was reelected President of the United States.  I have made my position fairly clear on my politics recently.  And not so recently, as well.  Make no mistake:  I am happy about the results of last night's presidential contest.

However, upon some reflection this morning, I have come to realize what a self-centered exercise politics can be.  I wanted Barack Obama to win because of his dedication to the middle class and health care, among other things.  If I were in business versus education, I would probably have been a Mitt Romney supporter.  That's the way politics works.  The winner of any political election, whether it's for President of the United States or city council, is the person whom the electorate believes will help them with their problems the most.  Ebenezer Scrooge, pre-Marley's ghost, would have been a Romney supporter.  Ebenezer Scrooge, post-yuletide Ghosts, would have backed Obama.  It's all about what your "business" is.

Today is Worry Wednesday.  I could go on about the schizophrenic nature of the political situation in Michigan.  I mean, we are the state in which most of the country's labor unions began, and, yet, we voted down a proposal last night that would have constitutionally protected collective bargaining.  We, as a state, went blue for Barack, and, yet, my county in the Upper Peninsula reelected a fellow to Congress who is a heart surgeon, a millionaire, and a Republican.  Go figure.  When I reviewed all of the results from last night, I got the feeling that people in Michigan simply didn't think things through very much.  We have a Democratic president, and we elected a man to the House of Representatives who will oppose his every move.

I could go on, but I'm not going to.  I have worries, for myself, for my family, for my country.  Everybody does.  I know that Barack Obama is not going to take care of all my worries.  Mitt Romney would not have taken care of all my worries.  As Ebenezer Scrooge says in the passage at the beginning of this post, my business will occupy me constantly, for the rest of my life.

Saint Marty wants to rise above his worries this morning and embrace the idea of hope and compassion and charity.  That's his Father's business.



Feeling a little blue