Again?

I don’t know where to start. Part of me has hoped beyond hope that somehow we would have found a solution to the problem of mass shootings in the United States. I’m wrong. And I am pretty well convinced that I will remain wrong until the most profitable field in medicine is Mental Health.

Oh…don’t get me wrong. I do not blame ALL shootings on people with mental health issues. Nah. That’s not what I mean. I just mean that until mental health becomes a priority for us in the United States – and let’s be honest, the only real priorities in the United States are profitable priorities – then we will not even be able to carry on the conversations that we really need to have in order to fix this problem.

We just are not sane enough.

Why do I say that, you ask? Well, it happened in 1999 in Columbine and all of our thoughts and prayers and energy went into changing nothing. It happened in 2012 in Newton and all of our thoughts, prayers, energy, and ranting on social media went forward to change nothing. It happened in 2018 at Stoneman Douglas High School and all of our thoughts, prayers, speeches, energy, and ranting/raving on social media went forward to change nothing. Does doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results sound sane to you?

We are not sane enough to have conversations about people killing people that lead to changes in laws that will protect life because our minds are clouded by the insanity that our rights may somehow be trampled. We are not sane enough to have conversations about people killing children because we are so entrenched in our own “belief systems” that we cannot even hear someone else without making them into a villain

We are not sane enough. And until we make mental wellness the most profitable branch of medicine – Nothing. Will. Change.

Am I speaking in hyperbole, being just a bit sarcastic, or attempting to be prophetic? I don’t know yet. But after this next batch of sad, needless funerals take place, if nothing changes, AGAIN, then we will all know.

So, today, I did what I do when I am forced to think about 19 dead elementary school children and their families and community trying to comes to grips with the loss. I prayed. And I worked on my own mental health, because we must all be a little bit insane since this is still happening.

I also share with you the prayer that I have prayed all day in hopes it will bring you to a point of lamenting both the violence and the lack of mental health we face as a society. Enjoy the song. Cry if you can.