a broken world

People will make today about gun control, violent video games, homegrown terrorism and even why parents would bring a little baby to a midnight showing.


For the record, I hate guns and wish we could ban them. The fact that CNN can publish a robust timeline of mass shootings makes me ill. I would love to have a passionate debate about the craziness that this country does not have a ban on assault weapons.


Tomorrow.


But for today, I wish we could just be sad at the brokenness of our world.

I wish we could be sad for the victims - the terror, the fear, the death that occurred in an innocent place.

I wish we could be sad that the shooter felt this was his best course of action. Sad for whatever was happening inside of him that went unresolved.

I am sad that the shooter was described as a loner by his neighbors, as so often they are. I wonder if someone would have taken the time to get to know him if he wouldn't have felt the need. Or if he was just too sick in heart and mind for anything to be done.

I don't know why it all happens except for the fact we live in a world at the intersection of good and evil. For me, it's evidence of a God that loves so much that he's given us the freedom to choose between the two and who weeps when we choose evil.

But I hope today is less about politics and judgment and more about simple grief.


"Tragedy is more important than love. Out of all human events, it is tragedy alone that brings people out of their own petty desires and into awareness of other humans' suffering. Tragedy occurs in human lives so that we will learn to reach out and comfort others"
--C. S. Lewis

on the news

I love big  news days because I love newspapers. It might be a dying medium but everybody wants a copy of the New York Times to put in their scrapbook when days like this happen. These are not front pages that you will end up using for packing material, bird cage liner or silly hats. You'll fold it nicely. Maybe frame it. And you'll be glad you had the real thing - not a printed web page.

So today I am celebrating newspapers. (You can see all those front pages from today here or here or here. And how journalists got the news, here.)

Because the flash mobs outside the White House and Times Square make me feel funny. It feels too much like the mobs we watch on TV in disgust at the celebration of death. Don't get me wrong. He's a bad man. A bad, bad man that represents evil in human form. But celebrating death, in any instance, makes me just feel funny.

In fairness, the "Rot in Hell" headline from the New York Daily News and the "We Got the Bastard" from the Philadelphia Daily News make me feel funny, too.

Instead, it kind of all just feels sad to me. Mostly for the victims that probably feel like they got closure but most likely, it won't be enough. That there is so much hate in such a broken world and that the death of one man will not end it. (Read more: USA! USA! is the wrong response)

So today I'm putting on my journalism hat. Reading about reporters. Reading the poignant editorials. And just loving the art of the newspaper.