Uvalde's Mirror

And so the finger-pointing goes on.

Too many guns!

Not enough armed teachers!

Red flags ignored!

Slow response!

I won't debate any of the above, here, rhetorically, or in comments.

First, I'm not qualified, and second, like Melville's Bartleby, I would prefer not to.

I will say this, that no-one is talking about the root cause of the problem... alienation, and a carefully nurtured cult of individualism, and non-belonging, watered with angst and fertilized with anger.

Was it Benjamin Franklin who said that we've got to hang together, or we'll surely hang separately?

I think he would have found wry irony in our fashioning our own noose.

For further reading, I'd like to suggest Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone , which looks at the deterioration of the American social fabric through the lens of decreasing participation in bowling leagues. First published in book form in 2000, before the almost complete fracturing of community by the Internet, it's all the more relevant today.

Barb added her thoughts, that there is really very little disciplining of children in these years; a spanking is considered by the government to be tantamount to child abuse, and I have heard tell of kids going unpunished after physically assaulting teachers.

We've got troubles; it's up to us, and not our elected officials, to solve them.

Oh, right. The sonnet.

Our nation's fabric has been rent

way past social distance,

for we've gone where we always went,

the path of least resistance.

Once we had bowling and bridge,

a BBQ for all the block,

but now it's Netflix and the fridge;

front door's got a double lock.

We might wave to our neighbours,

but have we heard their heart's?

We claim to have a Saviour,

but still we keep apart

from His edict; we resist,

"Two or more, I'm in your midst."

The only music I can think of for this is Ed Ames' Who Will Answer?

Please give it a listen. It's really a song for our time, and he's got a lovely voice.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is HEAL.

You can't heal by making rules,

you can't heal in public speeches.

Better to be rum-soaked fools

lolling on Caribbean beaches.

You can't heal by written word,

or by heartfelt YouTube talk.

You can't heal with sharpened sword,

but only if you walk the walk

and use your life as an instruction

of danger we won't face, but see

of convenience as destruction

of what should be community,

so put aside the screen and start

a healing with in-person heart.

Sylvia approves this, and...she sez: "Be doggy, be part of a pack, but I'm NOT sharing my ice cream!"