Forging instruments of peace, one heart at a time

It’s been almost a week since two mass shootings claimed the lives of at least 31 people. In a country that, thus far in 2019, averages more than one mass shooting per day, these latest incidents have raised, yet again, the question of how, or if, we will stem the tide of violence and bloodshed …

Lions and lambs — profiles in courage and cowardice

  Surveying the wanton waste of life and ineptitude of leadership on the Western Front in World War I, German Gen. Max von Gallwitz penned to a colleague a truism that I think applies to the contemporary state of our society. “Never,” Gallwitz wrote, “have I seen such lions led by such lambs.” America is …

Better research, not more rhetoric, needed to counter gun violence

  In all our division and partisan rhetoric, there are few issues as intractable as gun violence. Despite having 25 times the rate of gun violence in other developed nations, we can’t achieve any response more meaningful than caustic rhetoric from both sides. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible citizens who value firearm …

Praying their names

A reflection in prayer on the victims from Tree of Life On Sunday our nation learned the names of the 11 victims claimed in our nation’s latest round of senseless, hate-driven gun violence. An anti-Semite, armed with an AR-15 rifle and three handguns, murdered our brothers and sisters while they were worshiping and celebrating the …

Youth leading us to right side of history

Hundreds of thousands of youth are expected to protest tomorrow in the March for Our Lives — a student-led movement calling for legislation to effectively address gun violence. Since the Feb. 14 massacre that claimed 17 lives in Parkland, Fla., the survivors and their peers have organized more than 800 demonstrations around the United States and …

Sacrificing our children on the altar of greed and guns

This originally was published as an opinion column in the Feb. 16, 2018 Enid News & Eagle. By the time this prints, the fervor of media coverage surrounding the latest mass killing will have subsided. Funerals will be planned. Families will grieve. Survivors will suffer. A nation will shake its head in a collective “So …

Giving thanks for the harvest to come

Thanksgiving has passed, leftovers are packed away, and, if we’re lucky, the antacids are working. Hopefully we took time to give thanks. I am blessed with an amazing wife, two wonderful daughters, good friends, a reverent and inspiring church, my job and a warm place to sleep tonight, among other blessings. But, I’d like to …