is something I've never done before, but it's going to happen today.
As I was going over what I'd written for today, it just didn't feel right. It wasn't bad, but it felt inarticulate and inadequate, considering what has gone down in the world---and in Oregon---over the past eleven days, since Oct. 1, when a student at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg opened fire on his classmates and teacher, killing nine of them before he killed himself.
This was followed a few days later by two more school shootings in the US, in which others died, and the horrible specter of Roseburg citizens protesting the arrival of President Obama in Roseburg to visit the families of the victims, angry with him and his concerns about gun violence.
I was afraid for him all day, afraid that one of these misguided souls might haul off and shoot our President because of their anger and fear, afraid of what that would mean for our nation and for Oregon, afraid of the ricochet of a metaphorical bullet as it brought down hopes and dreams in a bloody heap.
So we are going to spend the 20 minutes of sermon time in a conversation about guns and hate, two topics that have reared their ugly heads in several ways in the past eleven days. I intended to tie together, cleverly of course, the observances of the UN's Day of the Girl Child, Indigenous People's Day, and National Coming Out Day, including the work of the Organizing Collective of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism, which penned a thoughtful document about how our 7 principles are expressed through the BLM campaign.
In the end, it just wasn't going to work. So here we are with Plan B.
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