Mea Culpa

Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! I am mourning the deaths of innocents, again, as are so many of us. And I am culpable.

       (I open with the full Facebook post made earlier today)

I grieve with the devestated families, left behind, again. And I beg their forgiveness of my part in bringing about their loss.

I haven't done enough, in addressing my nation's plague of armed violence. I've voted for politicians who I hoped would solve this crisis but seem not to have chosen well.

I have wept, fasted and prayed. It has not been sufficient, when war and murder still abound. I am sorry, and repent of my errors.

Yet, as did Gandhi, I believe in the absolute oneness of God and therefore of humanity...it is for this then that I can neither detach myself from the wickedest soul, nor be denied identity with the most virtuous.

I really do wish I could join, without qualification, the answering calls for action I hear, again. I just don't see how more gun control laws will help - primarily because they don't seem to have, thus far.

Yes, I really wish we could hear a lot more from the NRA, et. al., about the responsibilities inherent to 2nd Amendment rights. But aren't we also to a degree scapegoating our one minority subculture devoted to firearms? Don't we do that, all too often? Point to an out-group and lay the blame for our woes at their feet?

So today I also wish this generational American plague of violent death were as simple to resolve as is often claimed, particularly following each grisly mass murder.

Aren't we all in the end responsible in this? While a comforting emotional release in our grief over regularly repeated mass killings, in hand-wringing and passionate politics we are only addressing one of the roots of our problem. And it doesn't seem to be helping.

Above you've found the best crack I've found for letting some light into what's really going on, two days after the Uvalde Texas school massacre, and 11 days since the Tops massacre in Buffalo, NY.

And it comes from your Brother Charlie's brief 44 years of study, contemplation, prayer, meditation and activism. That doesn't make me right, it just means I've learned the humility to admit that I don't have any simple political or social engineering solution to offer. The ultimate solution is breathtakingly simple, though.

We Are All One

One Heart, one pain

One Mind, one fear

One Life, one death

One Soul, one salvation

I hope you'll look further into GUS. I've collected here many references to world faith and practice traditions, published more of my own writing and...withal borne upon these imperfect wings of prayer that the reader will come to know their path and be liberated from all the vales of illusion and live forever in Bliss!

Namesté