Seattle Shooting

Yesterday a middle aged man from the Tri Cities entered the Jewish Foundation building and shot six women, killing one and critically wounding three others. He reportedly announced that he was a Muslim American and was angry at Israel and then opened fire.

So continues the ridiculous, brutal cycle of revenge and reprisal, even against the innocents. And as I watched the news unfold yesterday, I remembered what Pope Benedict XVI had said, just last Sunday, and posted below: "Precisely at this time, a time of great abuse of the name of God, we have need of the God who overcomes on the cross, who does not conquer with violence, but with his love."

It seems to me that the God of love is much missing in our world, even among Christians who ought to know better.

Those of us who are active in the Seattle Interfaith community are stunned by this crime, and dismayed that it should happen here. After 9/11, many Seattlites "stood guard" at the local mosques, to protect them from retalliatory violence. Representatives from the Seattle Muslim community hurried to the site of the shootings, yesterday afternoon, and expressed their outrage and condemnation of this hateful act. Today, the have cancelled a silent march they had scheduled in Kirkland, to protest the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, fearing the safety of all those involved.

In a statement issued yesterday by Rev. Dr. Sandford Brown, Executive Director of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, he states that: "Seattle is a place of interfaith understanding and cooperation. This incident does not reflect how religious people interact here. Along with the innocent people killed and hurt, it will take many years for our interfaith work to overcome this brutal and hateful crime."

Amen.