#PrayForOrlando

[Note: I’m taking a blog vacation for a couple of weeks and anticipate returning to action at the first of July.]

I will travel to Kenya this week with family and friends to spend the last half of June with an inspiring organization called Made in the Streets.  The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for those traveling to Kenya, potential violence, terrorism, and whatnot.  I very much take such warnings seriously, and yet, in Santa Monica, California, this morning, fifteen miles from my house, a man was caught with chemicals, assault weapons, and ammunition on his way to terrorize a gay pride parade—just hours after the deadliest mass shooting in American history occurred at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  Where exactly are the safe places in the world right now?

For reasons specific to my personal belief system, I am neither shocked by nor afraid of the violence that currently dominates the headlines, but I do find it terribly sad, and my heart goes out to the victims and those who love them.  I join the chorus that urges everyone to #PrayForOrlando.

There are things that should be done, and we (however defined) should do them, but there is no easy fix in this world for hatred and violence.  I continue to believe that the complicated solution is a revolution of indiscriminate love and maintain my commitment to such a revolutionary practice.

I really do believe that love, eventually, wins.