Terrorists, Black Lives Matter, Attacks on Law Enforcement, Race Rhetoric, Poor leadership, Political divisiveness. All are rampant across our country and the world.
With that as the backdrop Nice, France happens. A fire rises in the belly to put a stop to all the madness. When will it stop? How in the world do we put the cork back in the bottle?
49 people were killed in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, 5 Police Officers are shot and killed protecting a peaceful protest of the citizens voicing their reactions to questionable deaths in Louisiana and Minnesota. 84 people who were celebrating a joyous holiday, Bastille Day, the equivalent to our 4th of July are run down in the street. President Hollande said that another 50 are barely hanging on to life due to the very critical nature of their injuries.
I am not sure I can focus on this latest event as a stand alone because it is now the a collective of more and more egregious attacks from too many quarters. It is as if the value of human life must now give way to ideology and agendas. Has the humanity of the world suffered so greatly that acceptance of violence and death is a given? Is it now beyond the ability of people to reconcile the monstrousness that walks among us, to understand in a grander sense of what is happening and address the root causes.
For millennia man has found ways to be barbaric and unreceptive to ideas that are not their own. Have we not come closer to being enlightened enough to arrive at a place where violence, distrust, disrespect and aggression are identified as unwanted and not welcomed.
The many opposing groups, religions, races and political agendas have wrought this anger and despair. Each can be held up to scorn for the strident rejection of anything that does not move in lock step with their ideology. Half truths, slanted words and even lies are encountered in the daily diatribes of each side.
The culmination of this environment can easily be open revolution, war in the streets between all the varied and different factions or it can provoke the entire world, both leaders and citizens to rise up, put personal agendas aside and join forces to achieve a civility that has been lost. Honest words must be spoken, falsehoods rejected and common ground found or else the perpetuation and advancement of this amorphous and barbaric climate will fester and grow. If that is allowed to happen than the prescription for the end of civilization will be written in the fabric of life and the only one who will be able to do anything about it will be Almighty God.