Better Weather

I have been into Broadway show tunes for the last while.  I have a great mix of songs on a playlist-- from chestnuts to new favorites.  I appreciate the lyricism more now than ever before...it is FULL music that plays to my love of story and the senses.  Several songs from the soundtrack to Tony-sweeping Hamilton are recent frequent plays.  I have a whole new appreciation for the exquisite linguistic maneuverings of rap and hip-hop thanks to the artistry of Lin-Manuel Miranda and the whole cast. 

I was listening to this music when the BBC notice about the Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando blipped up on my screen. The shooting in  San Bernadino last December elicited an intense response from me.  This was different somehow.  I am no less saddened and certainly no less ashamed of congress or concerned about how such hate manages to flourish.  Perhaps it is a certain sense of being Fed Up.  Fed up with people wondering how it can be that people do this.  That seems pretty clear.  You make a decision that one group of people, whoever that might be, deserves death, you buy a gun legally, you plan, and you execute the plan.  What leads up to this is nuanced and multifaceted, for certain.  There are questions of evil, of extremism, of loneliness, illness and hosts of other issues.  But the basic how seems as obvious as the lack of interest on the part of lawmakers in doing a blessed thing about it. 

Better Weather

What I do not understand

is how you wake up washed in hate and not in the light-
Believing that it’s God who calls you to the fight;
So you exercise a right and buy a gun so you can
meet what you consider to be your divine plan.
That’s bad enough-a desecration of the love
that God has equally for all from above.

Then there’s a country that refuses to acknowledge

that these weapons have no place and should be abolished.
They feed the hate and facilitate the war
that is happening Here AND on a distant shore.

 People ask “How many more?” but that question is old

because clearly Congress refuses to do anything bold.
Here’s a new one to consider—How long can we last
when the Love we woke up to fades into the past?
When we forget how freedom feels and when fear rules the heart
and we spend money behind fortresses instead of making art
to remind us, invite us, inspire and unite us
in our call to stand together, each glorious one-
in the light, in the light,
in the light of the sun.
With open hands, full hearts, and listening souls
ready to welcome, to learn, to help, and to hold.

We can battle with the rattle of our ideologies

and sell a semi-automatic to our neighbors and friends,
closing our eyes to the sight of blood on our hands
Or, we can amend the laws that guide the land.

This will not stop the hate, the fear, the push for power

but it will make it harder for mass murder to tower
over the news, over our hearts, over homes of the nation,
and dominate discussions of hate and discrimination.

Let’s change the laws. Let’s get it together.

Stop the rain of tears and make better weather
So Love can bloom wild and dance with rebirth
among all the inhabitants of this beautiful Earth.

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ