Baton Rouge. Minneapolis. Dallas

On Wednesday Philando Castile was shot and killed during a traffic stop for a broken tail light.

On my way to work on Thursday morning I passed the corner where I was pulled over for a broken headlight last fall. And I was thinking how annoyed I was because getting it replaced was on my "to do" list for my day off that week and now here I was ... inconvenienced by now having to fill out papers and file a "fix-it" ticket to prove I fixed it because the dude in the black-and-white pulled me over in front of the Jack-in-the-Box on the corner.

 Poor me. Poor unexamined privileged me.

It never in a million years occurred to me I might get arrested. Or shot. I don't have to think about that because I'm white. I just get to be annoyed at being inconvenienced. And that is not how this country is supposed to work. It's not how the world is supposed to work. And it's absolutely high on the list of reasons Jesus wept. And weeps today. Until all of us are free, none of us are free. Until ‪#‎blacklivesmatter‬, no lives matter. And we are SOOOOO not there yet.

We are so not there yet when police officers are gunned down in the line of duty -- protecting peaceful protesters as they march to create change in our nation.

This morning these words were the first ones I read -- from UCC national leader Traci Blackmon:

Let me be clear... Ultimately, the guns used to kill 5 officers last night and wound 6 more and 1 civilian and the guns used to kill Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Jordan Davis, John Crawford, Amadou Diallo, 49 mostly Black and Latinx people who were LGTBQ at Pulse in Orlando, 9 people in bible study in Charleston and over 500 other people in our streets this year were loaded by the common enemies of fear and hate...no matter who pulled the trigger.

We are all connected. We must mourn it all...and we must all Love ourselves out of this.

 Murder is a by-product of people who have lost their love. Love is our only hope.

Amen. Kyrie Eleison.