When I woke up this morning and first saw the news about the mass shooting here in Orlando, I was both shocked and disheartened. I’ve spent most of the day following the story on-line. And finding myself more and more disheartened. It’s bad enough that so many people lost their lives leaving behind so many grieving family members and friends. It’s tragic enough.
But adding to a situation that is already tragic enough, there is a constant hum of rhetoric telling me that we may still not find the sense to deal with the hate and gun violence in this country. What I’m hearing today is that we don’t need to talk about the hate routinely directed toward the LGBTQ community by many of our fellow citizens because “ISIS”. We don’t need to talk about our ridiculous gun laws that make purchasing an assault rifle legal because “ISIS”. What I’m hearing today is that the whole tragedy could have been avoided if everyone else in the bar had been armed and prepared to shoot. So unless we see some major, unexpected change among those who create and maintain our laws, it seems that we will continue to arm more citizens with fewer regulations and that we will continue to promote legislation that aims to discriminate against and validate the hate displayed toward the LGBTQ community.
All of this has led me to conclude once again that human beings, as a species, are too often very bad at developing the qualities of compassion and tolerance that we so badly need if we want a good future for the generations that come after us, if we want a future for our species at all.
So I decided to go ahead and post these images of trees, many of which have been alive longer than many of us. I tend to believe that trees are wise beyond human understanding. Perhaps if we spend more time contemplating them, we can learn something new about wisdom and peace.
Karen Lee Kleis 
this is amazing, the pictures took my breath away, this is so amazing
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Thank you!
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don’t mention it
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Thank you, Karen. I feel stronger, and more peaceful for these images and energy.
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I’m glad these made you feel more strength and peace. Thank you!
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Read this last night and really odd that yes, the trees were calming. They are beautiful. I’ve calmed down some since yesterday. I just don’t get it Karen, if we were talking about gun rights that is one thing but we are talking about assault weapons mass murdering quickly. What is so hard to understand about that? Shakes head. I just don’t get what is so hard to see in that from people. Loved your post.
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I don’t understand it, either, Tammy. I don’t understand the insistence on keeping assault weapons legal. I don’t understand the mentality that that refuses to see that religious extremism and condemnation breeds hate and violence. It isn’t an Islam thing. It isn’t a Christian thing. It comes from the type of distorted belief system that points a finger at anyone or anything that doesn’t conform to it. Why it is so hard for all of us to focus on acceptance and kindness? Anyway, I’m glad you found the trees calming in some ways. I was kind of hesitant to post but then I thought how much we all need to believe that something better is possible.
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Well here is one extreme of it, losing readership because of my opinion on assault weapons on the eve of one of the worse mass shooting. And I say good riddance lol. I am glad you didn’t hesitate to post. When you’re passionate about a subject you might lose readership anyway but that is what I love about passion, art, writing and writing on edge… it has to rub raw somewhere 🙂 Keep posting no matter what!
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Thanks! I’m with you. I write because it is something I feel passionate about and because I hope other people will find something to respond to. Those who only want to hear a parroting of their own opinions are not the people I write for. They can go find an isolated echo chamber somewhere.
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Woohooo 😉
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I wonder if I could wander into a gun shop and walk out with an assault weapon. Would anybody question me as to why I would need such a weapon? Would they think to ask me if I was mad at somebody? Would they think to ask me what my intentions were? Would I really need an assault rifle to protect myself in my own home?
These things are so easy to get….so easy to kill many people and so easy to second guess why…after the fact.
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I’m still trying to process the whole thing today. There are so many questions and no easy answers.
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