Reflecting on Saturday
Today, I am a little late sharing this on LinkedIn, but I wanted to share to all of my Pittsburgh friends, along with all of you all over the world, about a small tragedy in our city. A Jewish congregation was worshiping God on their Sabbath Day, on Saturday. The news broke and said there had been a shooting in Squirrel Hill, at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Eleven victims were murdered by a man who wanted to "kill all the Jews," and just writing that makes me sick. I think our western culture no longer values "life," has no respect for life or at least some of it, but not all of the culture. I find life to be the greatest gift of all.
So instead of me harping on this horrible tragedy, and making the victims families, even in more grief, I simply want to place my condolences and dearest sympathies to my neighbors in Squirrel Hill. If you are a Pittsburgh native, I do not know if you were effected by this horrendous tragedies, but I have some good news, and that is, you and I are still here. We're the lucky ones, and we have some options now. The first option is be angry, be very angry, and have your heart full of hate for the hate in this man's heart, and the action he committed. As someone who is a natural human being these emotions are real, and absolutely relatable, and I can understand why you would feel such a way.
However to be the bigger person, there is an alternative we all can choose. The alternative is "love." Can I be really clear about this though? I do not mean just tossing around the word I love you all the time and not meaning it, and I do not mean going around boasting how tolerant and kind and loving you are, while you disagree with the way someone may think. Let your love speak louder than words to people that think like you, and to people that don't, whether they have a different skin color, are a different gender, have a different appearance than you, pray to God a different way than you or don't pray to God at all, or may pray to Jesus, whether they have different dating preferences than you, just simple be kind to people and remember it works in every direction not just an assumed one. People every day are fighting a battle that we do not know about.
One of the things I really reflect on after this tragedy, is the gift of life, and how short life really is. We are not promised tomorrow. Take the chance my fellow Americans, fellow citizens of this world, live a little, take the risk, bur do not be like the man on Saturday. Do not let his actions live in your head rent free, do not be so angry, about him that you cannot enjoy the good things in your life, so forgive the man, not because he deserves it but because you deserve peace. Pray for the man, pray he would be convicted spiritually, and get his life right with God, or whatever you believe. This man also deserves the punishment for taking the eleven lives of these poor Jewish people.
I want to leave you with two quotes of my absolute two favorite people my heroes, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ himself. Dr. King Jr said, "Darkness" cannot drive out darkness only light can do that, Hate cannot drive out hate only LOVE can do that. Jesus said "But I say unto you Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to the that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. (Matthew 5:44) So if we really believe in "love", lets not play divide and conquer, this is a serious issue. Just love people...