"Arizona"

I cannot even begin to psychologically dissect
anything involved with what happened Saturday
in Tuscon, AZ. I can't. Not special education
to help, no special knowledge to help, no
special insight to make sense of any of it.

In fact, any thought process in trying to
"make sense" of any of it, by even experts,
will never clarify the event in any way
shape or form in my feeble mind.

But as it rattles around in my weak mind,
one thing continues to spring forward:
When an individual has absolutely no
regard to the sanctity of life, evil things
happen.

No one in the history of the world has
loved others enough to kill others.

If you truly love your neighbor, not once
in the history, does that love turn
to murder. It can't.

Some may have killed under the umbrella
of love... but it wasn't the love for those
they killed for which they killed.

It makes no sense.

Or maybe I'm too simple.

I guess this may need repeating:

If I speak in the tongues
of men or of angels, but do not have love,
I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom
all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a
faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,
but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I Corinthians 13 (NIV)