Fall scene at today’s homicide site
Raking leaves today from the street into the front yard garden was using the dead leaves to enrich the soil in the garden. The dead leaves will decay and add new life to the soil. Dying is an everyday thing in the fall, even on a sunny today like today.
The blanket of the colorful leaves will keep the soil below warm. The air between the thin leaves will insulate the soil. With sun and rain or snow, however, the leaves will eventually become part of the soil. From the dying of the leaves renewed soil grows.
Today we had prayer vigils for two young men who were killed in our city in the last week. We pray at the spot they died that they their death will bring new resolve and life for people to stop the senseless killing that takes place every day in our cities. Our prayers seem to fall on deaf human ears, as the root causes of violence are not addressed, only the symptoms. These two deaths seem to offer little hope of bringing a time of renewed life and peace.
US government officials are now struggling with the ‘why’ of sending young men and women to Afghanistan to kill or be killed. It seemed clear to some, eight years ago, after 9/11 to send US soldiers to Afghanistan. Our president now says we will not pull out, but struggles with the ‘why’ of the war and sending in more troops. As he figures out the justification for more deaths on all the sides of the war we continue to lose the war. My prayer is that this dying, as with dying in Vietnam and Iraq, will finally teach us that we cannot win a war when the cause of the war is our occupation of the country. Death in war seems to only bring more war and more deaths.
Leaves die and bring new life. Young men die in our city and we pray and hope for an end to these senseless killing. Soldiers and civilians die in war and it only leads to more death.
When will we ever learn to be like leaves and slowly die each day, and not kill human beings on the street or in war? Dying leaves are okay but not dying lives.
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