A Place of Refuge...A Place of Horror

Desecration in the holy places. Horror of horrors.

A long moment of silence followed as I tried to digest the latest tragedy in far away Charleston, South Carolina.


I know, the horrors we battle daily in our land is more than enough to keep anyone occupied for one zillion lifetimes.

Nonetheless, nothing could detract from the jitters, afresh that washes down one's spine on hearing and reading of such atrocities.

A place of worship is to many a place of refuge. Of hope. Of refreshing. Of awakening. Of peace. Of cleansing. And so much more.

How then did a place of worship become a place of easy target for supremacists?

I use the word 'supremacist' loosely because anybody that feels threatened by another enough to want to get them out of the way is definitely suffering from something more than 'supremacy'.

The ailment plaguing such is more like a mixture of hate (self and others), racism and psychologically induced inferiority.

An ailment that could have been spotted early on.

If the foundation is destroyed...

A home is meant to be a place of warmth. Of nurturing. Of rest. Of love. Of bonding. Of refuge.
How are the homes today turning into places where little monsters and horrific plots are birthed?

On Wednesday, a young man -Dylann Storm Roof joined a bible study session inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and reportedly shot nine people dead after sitting with them for over one hour studying the bible together.

What was on his mind as Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the other members warmly welcomed him into the gathering?
What was he thinking as he sat close to the man and gazed into the eyes of the other members of the group whom he would come to mercilessly gun down several minutes later? 



Victims of a warped society...RIP, people.

He reportedly admitted that he did not want to go through with the 'plan' because they were all nice to him and I wish he had allowed that tiny good voice to prevail.


I find it particularly disturbing that the horror was unleashed with a gun, gifted him by his parent(s) on his 21st birthday.

A question that has been scorching and searing my mind and which I am not likely to get an answer to is why any loving parent would present their son with a gun -not a toy one  but a real .45 caliber handgun for his birthday.

I admit, getting a 21 year old a gun is as brow-raising as spoiling a 'baby' girl with replicated custom-built expensive sport cars a la Range Rover and Lamborghinis.

Both instances and reasoning are questionable but what do I know?

What are we churning out? What are we raising?

If the objective is to raise marksmen, sharp-shooters, killers and self-obsessed materialistic narcissists, then all is good.

I digress.

I looked at all the pictures of Dylan I saw on on the web, different pictures spanning different periods and what stares back at me tells a different story.

Burning flags, posing with guns and flags, etc
Sad, expressive eyes.
Deep melancholic expressions that screams of a dark hideout within the deepest part of his twisted soul.






Credit

If I were Dylann's mum, I would definitely be worried. Severely worried. Moreso that he was reportedly introverted for a long time.

Something was not right there. And it took nine lovely people to be gruesomely sent untimely to their graves to discover that fact.

The world has gone completely bonkers. The society is warped. And it starts from the home unit.

I believe Dylan was not born with hatred in his heart. Nobody was. Nobody is.

Nobody came to the world hating or loving anyone, the major and only concern on getting out of the birth tunnel is survival...getting in some much needed gulps of worldy air to get going.

We all learn these 'vital' life skills and whatever is good / bad enough to be learnt could very well be unlearnt.

No day old baby understands the difference in skin colors until they begin to develop enough to visualize and verbalize happenings around them by which time the immediate society -the family may have chosen to delete the factory settings and re-write the psychology program.

Programs are written and re-written as circumstances demand. Systems are formatted, re-installed, re-set, etc but nothing beats getting it right from the get go.

Today, we ignorantly create the imaginary supremacy divides that grows to gargantuan devastating proportions and wreaks catastrophic havoc.

If the foundation be destroyed...

It's so sad what the world has turned into and my heart goes out to all those beautiful people's families and everyone else suffering from the aftermaths of hate campaigns today.

BUT...

How about we go back to restore the default factory settings and prevent future 'Dylannic' tragedies?

How about we start preaching the message of love right from the home?

How about we drum the equality message right from babyhood and stick by it?

How about we closely monitor our children / wards, become their best friends and get into their minds while they are still very young?

How about we really create time to train them in the way they should go that would make for a peaceful nation / world and co-existence?

How about we devote our all to this cause in order to prevent our places of refuge -the home and church from turning into places where horror is birthed and unleashed?

How many more heartache and tragedies would the world endure before we understand that none is supreme and we all have the same red blood flowing underneath the white and black skins?