Some of you may understand the significance of today’s title. Some might be aware, and that is a very good thing in its own way.

Elvis Costello once asked, “What’s So Funny About Peace Love And Understanding.”

Of course, the short answer, requiring no specialized knowledge. is nothing.

Nothing, indeed, is funny about peace, love, and understanding.

No, they are not funny. However, they may be in short supply.

The shooting of teenagers in Parkland, Florida, was remembered on its fifth anniversary a few weeks back. The following day I started volunteering at the cancer group where I go for treatment for CLL. I was stuffing envelopes with a woman about my age or, perhaps, older. She could have been a grandmother, but we never got that close to speaking about such things.
The first thing I said to her was, “What a terrible thing that shooting in Parkland was.”

Her reply:

“I just worry about the Second Amendment.”

I was incredulous.

I was flabbergasted.

I was dumbfounded.

I never said another word to gun totin granny, who cared more about the second amendment than human life.

In all the Constitutional Law classes I had (and I had two), the second amendment never was discussed.

But arguing over this and other hot-button issues has added to the need for my title today.

Love is rarely discussed except maybe in Hallmark movies, and we make fun of those.

What happened to America?

It’s astounding to me that we choose to identify all that is wrong with the other side. We never listen to the other side. We just know they are wrong, and some think they/we are evil.

Today is a case in point.

I could write something like, “When did America change and accept that it’s ok to hate and to say it out loud?

But you know when.

Americans claim to be a religious people. It’s time to read the tenets of our religions and apply them to the modern world. Don’t just cherry-pick your justification for applying two-thousand-year-old norms to the 21st century.

If He really does get us, He will forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Uh oh!