Did You Make Mankind after We Made You?

A lot of words have been written, with volumes to follow, about the attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords Saturday in Tucson, Arizona. The Congresswoman remains in critical condition-six people are dead. The lone gunman, Jared Loughner, seems to have been a long time in arriving at his inexorable and inevitable destination and much will be written about what seems to be a very ill young man who chose poorly and badly too often and too early to recover.

Early news reports spoke of Loughner's arrest for the attempted murder of Representative Giffords and for six counts of murder on John Roll, a federal judge, Gabe Zimmerman, a congressional staffer, Dorothy Murray, Dorwin Stoddard, Phyllis Scheck and Cristina Green. All but Green were adults.

Christina Green is forever nine years old. She would have celebrated her first decade on earth on September 11th. "A cold night and a long rope. It will all be so much easier now." The question is for whom. Those who are living or those who are leaving? Half a lifetime ago, John Lennon encouraged us to "Imagine living lives in peace" and became a victim of violence.

A "Face of Hope" is gone and we can be certain that no matter how hard we look, we won't find the reason why and that may be just as well since the hole and the hurt that won't heal because of what happened won't ever be filled or fixed. The only thing I'm sure of already is those who nightly bring me 'Pinheads and Patriots' and 'The Worst Person on Earth' are already convinced they have no part in any of what happened. Yeah, from your lips to God's ear. And from the earth below, all that can be said is "If You're up there, You'd perceive my heart's here upon my sleeve" so slowly beating as to not be at all.

-bill kenny