http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/08/20110108arizona-giffords-brk.html

Listening to the news about the shooting in Tucson where 6 are killed and 18 shot, including Arizona Congresswoman Gifford… They are reporting that one of the dead is a 9 year-old little girl. And it all makes me very sad.

When will we learn to really love our neighbor? Why do some feel that disagreeing with someone’s politics necessitates violence and harm? How is it that hate-mongering has ruled the day?

This event is an outward sign of an inward societal pain. And though it’s evidence is horrific and tragic in Tucson today, Arizona has been following a rhetoric of hate for a long time….

Just this week I spoke with Dream Act students who are fighting their way to their dreams in a state that shuts down any possibility of them seeing their dreams come true. Yet, with valor, they keep moving forward, hoping for change and a chance. This week we heard in the news that a new politic of dismantling citizenship from even the innocent babes is being pushed forward. So, because we can’t love an immigrant, we punish the most vulnerable? This week I spoke with many young men who couldn’t find work, who lost their family homes to foreclosure, and who wondered how they could contribute to putting food on their children’s tables, and they feel lost and left out.

When we hurt, we tend to “kick-the-dog.” But what if we stopped that childish behavior, and instead opened our hearts and arms to hear the pain, to heal the hurt, and to walk alongside those we understand and those we don’t yet understand? There is another way. It is the way of love. We can replace a politic of hate with The Politic of Love.

Please join me in standing for kind words, merciful acts, and a courageous movement toward Great Love. And please join me in praying for the victims and their families in Tucson. And please join me in praying for the shooter and his family, for they too are in pain.