I had my weekly band email all ready to send and then yesterday, the Annapolis shooting happened. I was glued to Facebook for an hour or so, and saw over 100 FB friends mark themselves safe. People commenting and asking “have you heard from so and so?” Very surreal. So nauseous.

 

Need to get this email out! I don’t have time to sort out my thoughts, or proofread. I don’t have time to read this over several times to make sure I don’t offend anyone. I can’t read this over and check to make sure I’m even making sense. So I think I just need to speak from the heart.

 

I of course want to express my condolences and send love to Annapolis, to the victims, to the loved ones, to Maryland, to the emergency crew (we know a few who were working on the scene). I want to express condolences to us all! We are all affected.

 

When these things happen, I start to feel pretty helpless about this world. These tragedies happen so often. TOO often. Can we get better? I would love to be my normal positive self and say yes we can! But it would not be honest. I am not sure if we can save ourselves from ourselves.

 

But.

 

IF we wanted to move in the direction of change, I think several things need to happen.

 

– We need to care more about DOING right than being right.
– We need to stop caring so much about money. It’s the worst. It makes people act freaking nuts.
– We need to start caring more about people. It’s easy to care about our loved ones and to care about people who are just like us, but we need to care beyond that.
– We need empathy. We need open hearts. We need to be curious about what we don’t understand. Talk to people! Ask them questions. Forming a fast opinion on something and holding onto it for dear life just doesn’t seem to be working for us. And trust me; I’m not talking just to the rights or just to the lefts. I mean everyone!
– We need to treat kindness as a responsibility, not an optional personality trait. OMG the comments on social media these days. It’s not just them; it’s us. It’s easy to say “oh, people can be so mean!” But we must look in the mirror. I see loved ones making heartless comments to others. And I don’t know why.
– We need to be ok with being wrong, and ok with changing our minds. Learning is a good thing, not a bad thing. If you can’t remember the last time you admit you were wrong, that could be a bad sign.
– We need to remember common sense. It’s easy to look back on society to a few decades ago and say wow that was dumb! Why did people do that. But it’s harder to do that with the present.
– We need to be willing to think for ourselves, instead of just automatically sticking with the left or the right.
– We need to get better at resolving conflict. Some of us suck at it. I think we can accomplish this with the above bullet points!
– We need to help others. Help today but help tomorrow too.

 

I am sure that I am leaving important stuff out. Ah well.

 

I love you. Thank you for reading. I pray for your happiness, health, and safety.
Photo by Angela Noblett
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