A day of mixed metaphors…

It’s not all that common for me to be at a loss for words!

Today, it’s not so much that I’m at a loss… rather that there are about a zillion of them which feel true and they don’t all get along very well.

There was a mass shooting in Midtown Atlanta today. The shooter is still at large. A veteran, reported to be suffering with mental challenges.

As my fingers move on the keyboard in this moment, Rep. Lucy McBath (D, GA-07) is on CNN calling on lawmakers to – you know – make laws to make tragedies like these more rare. Ms. McBath lost a teenaged son in a shooting and has worked tirelessly for reasonable gun laws throughout her service. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s children were involved in a school lockdown in the vicinity of today’s shooting.

“They’re there. I’m here, hoping and praying they are safe. But the truth is none of us is safe,” Warnock said (THE HILL).

According to CNN, there have been at least 190 mass shootings in America in 2023.

Five women were shot. One of them died of her wounds. The others are being treated for serious injuries at Grady Hospital.

Georgia Governor, Brian Kemp, who holds vastly different views from McBath and Warnock, is notably absent on the news.

While the shooting was happening, I – without having seen the news – was doing my walking/creative problem solving thing at Kudzu. Two full laps and some accessible, budget friendly solutions to the on-going Furniture Yahtzee challenges at our house.

And, in a deeper level of awareness, I was pondering change.

Practical changes for new needs and desires.

Perceptual changes emerging from learning new stories. And claiming them.

Visionary changes sprouting in me like the seeds of this Beltane season.

Then, home to a gathering of Red Madonna sisters in the land of Zoom. Women I know and women I don’t know yet, all walking a similar path, each in our own ways.

Tears. Prayers. Huge courage. Courage to speak deep truths and needs. Courage to speak dreams.

A blessing in the moment.

An even bigger blessing in the face of the news I learned just afterwards.

Soon it will be time for dinner. And Jeopardy… the geek bonding ritual at our house. More consciously, I suspect, this night than most.

And, then, back to the studio. The Sanctuary where I am mending Her and she is mending me so that I, in my own way, might help mend this bit of the world.

So be it.

ps… CNN reports that the Atlanta mass shooter is in custody.

pps… as Grandmother Moon reminds us, we ARE all connected!