What We've Lost

Children slain behind schoolhouse doors

Campus rampage taking even more

Mothers, fathers crying at the tragic loss

Are we immune from what we’ve lost

When a gun is chosen before the cross.

Nothing quells the constant fear

From what is happening year to year

Everywhere we hear news reports

About another family, classroom, shopping mall where all are lost.

All because an active shooter has decided they’re the boss

And have chosen the gun before the cross

Just think of what we’ve lost

By putting the gun before the cross

What is in your soul or in your heart

When you let the gun replace the cross?

Folks insist we have the right, to take up arms, and prepare to fight

We protect what’s our and stand our ground in any light

Board up houses, aim our guns, and fire rounds at anything in sight

It makes no difference if our ideas are the ones that are right

We must all think of what we’ve lost

By putting the gun before the cross

What is in your soul or what is in my heart

When you we let the gun replace the cross?

Not seeing what’s truly lost; it's the second amendment at any cost

No one is safe, once the cry for vengeance is proclaimed and cried

Children, neighbors, the faithful, the lost, anyone can be sacrificed

When we chose the gun before the cross and before a sacred life.

And I think of what we’ve lost

By putting the gun before the cross

What is in our hearts

When we all let the gun replace the cross?

The Heavenly Father gave his son as sacrifice for all we’ve done

Asking only for peace and love

We pray to him from guidance, and then,

Pick up guns and shoot again.

No faith, belief, religion is exempt

When any of us reject what violence attempts

There is no single culture, society, or creed

That allows for others or their own to impede

Or claim it is righteous to deny wills that are free

To be subject to such violence, selfishness, and greed

And to be so disdainful to those in need.

And I think of what we’ve lost

By putting the gun before the cross

And wonder what is in our hearts

When we deny the gun is before the cross

Some say we need guns for our liberty, and to protect us from tyranny

Militias formed to fight the fight, by using guns to protects our rights

But these arms are used instead in acts of rage, hate, revenge, and slight

Never considering the undeniable cost of putting the gun before the cross

I hope it’s not too late to turn away from our violent ways

May we kneel and fervently pray, hoping for truth in what we say

God gives us all her love when She hears the prayer we sing in sincerity

For it is the moment when proclaim as one,

The cross becomes before the gun.

I wrote the initial verses to this piece the day after the shooting at the Las Vegas music festival in 2022. Since then, I have added verses after each successive shooting announced on the news or over social media. From Texas to Florida to Virginia to each school, workplace, church, shopping center, city park, movie theater. I am running out of verses, tired of coming up with new lines, new ways of expressing my sadness. Guns are part of our cultural DNA. Can we change our embedded makeup? Should we try? Are words enough to cure us from this disease?