As we attempt to talk with God and with one another, there are no words that can adequately respond to the horror of the murders and shootings that took place in Aurora, Colorado. The Christian scriptures speak about how there are times we do not know how to pray or what to say. In such times God speaks for us with sighs too deep for words (Romans 8:26).
Today our most heartfelt prayers are surely these sighs that go far beyond our capacity to speak.
Yet, today we are bound together by the pain of grief, our shock and our outrage. Today we share the horror of unspeakable tragedy and unimaginable devastation. Today we are one in both the ache of our sorrow and the agony of our anger.
Our hearts go out to our sisters and brothers in Aurora: to the families who now have an empty place at their tables, to those who wait anxiously with their recovering loved ones, to those who risked their very lives to protect as much of life as they possibly could, and to the one who inflicted this unnecessary awfulness on so many others including his own home and family.
In a time like this we are grateful that we are not alone. Rather, we have one another: shoulders to cry on and arms to hold us as we shed our tears and share our fears. We are grateful, too, that the Creator of us all cries with us now and holds us so very close as together we find our way into the future.
We do not pretend that violence and death are not part of our world. Instead, we proclaim that violence and death are not the ultimate truths in life. The truths in life, the power in life, the meaning and purpose in life is found in other realities described in other words like these: compassion, courage, kindness, faith, mercy, forgiveness, gentleness, reconciliation, community, hope, prayer, peace and unconditional love.
We pray for mercy and comfort for all who suffer from the violence of July 20th in Aurora, Colorado.
Pat Bruns
