The breaking news of the shootings at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was one that I listened to and read about without allowing any of the sensationalism of a “breaking news story” to influence me. I did this by carefully listening to the first words of whatever coverage I heard and deciding quickly if I wanted to hear this particular representation of events or not.
In the last days, I watched part of a CNN interview with two of the friends of Tywanza Sanders and one with the best friend and daughter of the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. The type of people that they were and the impact that they had on the lives of those who knew and loved them was summed up for me especially in the interview where the daughter spoke of her mother’s teaching on giving people a second chance.
I don’t believe being given a second chance will make any difference to Dylann Roof in the foreseeable time but my prayer is that it will be a need that instilled in his heart. That he will come to repent of his act of crime. So, that said I am joining my voice with that of the daughter of Sharonda Coleman-Singleton in choosing to love instead of hating this blinded young man.
What happens legally to him under the law will happen.
Life has taught me that a change of heart doesn’t necessarily come about without some hard time in isolation. A type of isolation where a person is cut off from all that they knew and in this aloneness God can be truly heard if they listen. This is what I wish for him spiritually. Because this is what is dead inside of him and this deadness needs to be raised to life: hence, his second chance.
Sunday evening I read these online news stories:
‘Hate Crime’: A Mass Killing at a Historic Church
The Victims: 9 Were Slain At Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church
The Cross and the Confederate Flag
I want to share with you a quote that Yoni Appelbaum included in his article “Why Is the Flag Still There?”. It gives a perspective on the Confederate flag that Dylann Roof is holding in the photograph used in this article.
“Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination birthed in defense of the rights of slaveholders in 1845, issued a remarkable plea:
“The symbol was used to enslave the little brothers and sisters of Jesus, to bomb little girls in church buildings, to terrorize preachers of the gospel and their families with burning crosses on front lawns by night….The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire….Let’s take down that flag.””
On his blog Russell Moore goes on to say this: “That sort of symbolism is out of step with the justice of Jesus Christ. The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire.”
I for one say that flag and what it represents has already been set on fire. I see the flames and smoke from here. The hearts of the people who would hold to this symbolism need to be burned with this as well.
In the end God’s love will win.
Patricia
The Life Mature 
Hey Patricia , thank you for sharing your though in the subject ..as christians we all wish and prayed that this young man find the light of God in his life that he most likely never found … i am not sure wheather it’s a question of education he received or not since i know that even well educated people can commit horrible crimes .. what bother me the most is that i have the feeling that the most obvious questions is always avoid by the medias and the establischment ..(they rather act like lynching mob every time a crime is happening) how come so many troubled young men can so easyly get acces to weapons and amunitions like that?
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Hi Israel,
Thank you for commenting. I’m sorry for not replying sooner being that I’ve been in a writing funk that I’m just coming out of, as for your thoughts on the media…
I’m not sure if they even know how to response with anything like heartfelt compassion. So much of what we see is driven by a need to be professional which is understandable because a reporter has to allow the story to be told without their opinion being the focus of it.
Further more, there is so much simulation among media outlets that it’s the rare journalist that can go beyond and get to the heart of any story instead of just reporting the facts as occurred and getting the soundbites like the others reporting a “breaking news story” does.
As for the easy access to guns and ammunition, I personally think it is too easy for anyone troubled or not to obtain a weapon. Whatever rights the individual may have under law to bear arms it should always be balanced with the right of us all to live without the fear of dying from a weapon fired by a person who may be mentally disturbed or not. This balance must always sway to our right to live without the potential threat of gun-violence.
I understand fear very well.
I also understand living and doing the things I need to in life without carrying a weapon.
Personally, I live under the protection of an increasing faith in God’s will for my life, which means that I have to be aware and not live foolishly.
As much as I sometimes miss living with my own people, I am honestly glad not to be living amid the violence of those who have no respect for the lives of others.
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Vielen Dank für Deinen Blogg und Deine Gedanken zu bestimmten Themen.
Es inspiriert mich und gibt mir Mut, weiter und tiefer zu denken!
Ich freue mich schon auf Deinen nächsten Artikel 👍👍👍
Wir werden heutzutage von vielen Informationen überschwemmt und es ist so wichtig, diese auszuwerten und für sich selbst zu bewerten. Und trotz allem an das Gute zu glauben! Dazu brauchen wir einander zum Ermutigen!
In diesem Sinne: Danke !!!
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