Senseless, senseless

Over the next few days, scores of tributes will be written to honor the lives of those slain inside (and out of) the elementary school in Newtown, CT.  Though few of the names have been published, we know that the daughter of Nelba and Jimmy Greene, Ana Grace, was one of the students who perished...who was slaughtered by some person who had no value for human life.  By all accounts, Jimmy Greene (pictured left), saxophonist/composer/educator, is one of the genuinely good people in the world.  Deeply religious, thoughtful, a caring member of every community he comes in contact with, Greene expresses his love of life through his music and in the way he teaches others to express their inner truths.

Over the next few months, editorial pages will be filled with countless words about gun control, about regulations, and about personal freedoms.  Those words will, probably, do little or nothing to comfort those who lost their loved ones in the school; or on the streets of our cities and towns or anywhere in the world where these events happen every minute of the day.  Writers will say that it's finally time to sit down and really confront this issue.  And those of of us who sit and watch them posturing, whether they be politicians or lobbyists, will realize that we live in a world that is reactive, not proactive.  Like poverty, early childhood education, like universal health care, like the unchecked greed of many of our corporations, many people can only sit and ponder why, in a country that proclaims to be caring and responsive to the needs of all of its citizens - young and old - so many of those with the loudest voices and widest reach are so sheepish, unwilling to act. Even as President Obama fought back tears in his comments on Friday, too many people certainly felt frustrated by his administration's and our government's inability to remove the weapons of mass annihilation from the hands of those who know how to shoot first and never ask questions.

Whether you know anyone whose family have been touched by this or any of the senseless killings that occur all around us or whether you are just continually sickened by what you read and hear, raise your voice in sorrow and tell those who have the power to make a difference, whether they be politicians, clergymen, educators, journalists, whoever, the time for inaction is over.  We have waited too long, come too far, seen too much, to let these young children (or anyone who is a victim of a senseless crime) be forgotten.