Why we should pray more after Orlando

On June 4, 2016, the Orlando shooter bought a SIG MCX rifle.  It’s manufacturer, Sig Sauer, designed it for use by America’s special forces.  Bookmark what I’m about to say.  It ties in with what is to come in this blog:  Sig Sauer is an NRA corporate donor and sponsor of the NRA News series “Defending Our America.”

Eight days later after purchase, the shooter used this semi-automatic weapon of war to erase 49 innocent lives off the face of the earth and wound 53 more.  The shooter should have never had access to it in the first place.  It was designed for America’s special forces.  In the hands of the disturb it is not going to be used to, “defend America,” but to kill Americans…and THAT is the problem, America.

I understand the frustration we all feel in the surreal, painful, senseless, and unacceptable loss of 50 more precious lives, but as a kingdom kid and His royal daughter, you have got to know that I’m not feeling this push back against prayer. Prayer is not the problem. Want to know our problems?  I’m not beholden to either political party, so I call it as it is and without bias.  Let me name the obstacles that have allowed for innocent lives to continue to be taken, and you do the math.

Here’s a short list, loves:

* The Supreme Court

* The Citizens United decision

* Super PACs and their lobbyists

* Congress, specifically, our

* Republican controlled Congress, and

* the Dems who vote with them, owned and aligned with the

* NRA, who receives Sig Sauer corporate donations, the

* NRA, who owns a majority of Congress,

the * NRA–and did I mention,

the * NRA?!!

More to pray for, against and about:

* The removal of the Republicans (and some Dems) in Congress who are essentially and consistently bribed by NRA with the millions they spend on their election campaigns. These are the ones who refuse to pass even the most compromising bill for improved gun control.

* The end to special interest bullies like the NRA that have the ability to buy our elected leaders in the first place.

* The demise of the NRA, Monsanto and other powerful corporate monster special interest groups and their lobbyists who actually DRAFT the legislation that is often passed to protect not us, but their profits.  And this at tremendous harm to us as citizens and consumers.

* An overturn of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.  This is the more recent and sad reality that allows for and essentially created these Super PACs (political action committees) that buy our elected leaders’ voices through removing the limits to what they can, “donate”.

* A subsequent end to the power (that Super PACs yield through the millions they spend on Congressional election campaigns) that corrupts these politicians, rendering those who benefit from them self-serving and useless to their constituents.

* A reversal of the sad truth that the democratic process is now sold to the highest bidder.

* An end to these reigns of terror:  House Speaker Ryan, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, and their fellow Constitution-defying obstructionists.  Under McConnell, the Senate’s refusal to move forward with President Obama’s surprisingly moderate choice for SCOTUS justice nominee Judge Merrick B. Garland continues to leave the late Justice Scalia’s seat unfilled.

The Constitution is not theirs to rewrite.  A sitting President’s SCOTUS nominee should have long since had a timely hearing before the Senate.

Why is filling this SCOTUS vacancy so important?  The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United is what gave the power the NRA the financial power it wields over Congress today in their failure to act to protect us from the weapons used in these endless massacres!  To fill it with a moderate is critical for all of the cases to be decided that will continue to impact our lives in the way the Citizen’s United decision directly led to the corruption that now allows for the killing of our children and citizens to go unanswered by Congress.

So, my response to those who are tired of praying is this:  Let’s remove the obstacles!

Don’t stop praying, just get more specific!  Do not be discouraged.  G-d is neither deaf nor blind to our cries, nor to the innocent voices crying out from this blood-soaked land!  Do not grow weary in well-doing, loves. PRAY MORE!

Pray G-d intervenes with the above lists.  Pray over them, item by item.

Pray G-d removes every Congressional obstacle to passing the legislature we need to tighten the screening process for acquiring guns, to close loopholes, to address a myriad of related issues and cause these laws to be uniform in all 50 states.

Pray G-d moves so we can get military style automatic weapons of warfare off our streets. Magazines? Semi-automatics? These are the kill toys that are consistently used in these massacres. There’s no need for ordinary citizens to be so heavily armed except to take lives!

Pray G-d opens the eyes of those who manipulate the 2nd Amendment and misuse it to block legislation that would put protections in place that make it more difficult for the disturbed or the lawless to continue these kill sprees.

Pray He hushes the nonsense cries that we’re trying to take away guns from law-abiding citizens.

That’s just for starters. Don’t mind the push back; folk don’t know who we serve! They’re tired of us praying? Ok. That might just be our wake up call to pray MORE SPECIFICALLY and narrow our focus where our prayers will have the most impact.

Don’t just pray for peace in America, fam. G-d loves when we ask for exactly what we want, especially when it’s not for self, but for the greater good. So, GO BELIEVERS!!! PRAY!!! PRAY MORE!!

And let’s be honest.  Just as it’s futile to pray for peace in your home instead of focusing on the problem when you know that it is in fact your teenage daughters who are causing daily outbreaks of war, I encourage you to focus your prayers and pray specifically against every known evil and obstacle TO our peace in America.

(I could add presidential candidates to this list, but that’s a given, right?!!)

I want to encourage you that while this is all very temporary; that even so, He expects us to occupy and finish the good that He started until He comes.  We are here to speak the truth in love, and…love is still the most powerful weapon we have.  Let’s love more, stop the hate and SPECIFICALLY pray, pray, PRAY!

I speak His perfect shalom over you all, and I love you!

Dear Republican Leadership: You’ve missed your moment to shine

We’ve had 7, going on 8 years to have a shining moment here in America, but some of us have blown it.

We’ve gone from being a country built on the backs and blood of African royalty brought here as slaves…to twice electing an African American to the serve as President in the White House that was built by slaves. Take a moment with this:  President Barack Hussein Obama lives in The House that his enslaved ancestors and ours may well have built.

We who have been a part of this are all living history.

When we re-elected our President in 2012, we raised 5 million voices that the Republican leaders in Congress have refused to hear.  They’ve chosen to ignore us, the democratic process and to disrespect both the man and The Office of the Presidency.

And this in a way unprecedented in American history.

We, the people, had our shining moment.  We cried together, black and white that November night in 2008 when he, Michelle, Sasha and Malia took the stage for his victory speech in that park in Chicago.  We had proved that as a country we could come together and vote character over skin color.

We had come just that far since Dr. King’s voice rang out, leading us in, “We Shall Overcome”. But not all of us were crying. Some vacant ones were angry. Far too many of these empty souls fill far too many seats in Congress.  Seven years later, and like spoiled children, they still refuse to join us in respecting and working with who the American majority choose to be our President.

We’ve watched too many of these vacant Republican leaders plot and carry out some shameful things. In fact, they have become the kind of non-leaders that inspire the fruit we see in the GOP candidates now running for president. That fruit has not fallen far from the tree. It’s bitter, it’s ignorant, it does not speak the truth, it misleads the masses, and it has freed people to boldly vocalize their ignorance and hate and engage in acts of violence against Americans who don’t look like them, or believe like them, or share their faith or lifestyle. They have brought out the worst instead of the best in this country. They have ruined their own legacy, their own place in American history and have made a mockery of the 2-party, democratic process. They have become fodder we’d rather not have on display. They’ve become the subject of tremendous ridicule and disrespect from those who are watching us…from Canada to Africa.

Now, none of us are perfect. Not a single Democrat or Republican voter or elected official and not a single unenrolled voter like myself. But we’re not talking about the usual political differences in the typical political process here. What we’ve seen is a national disaster and disgrace. And that’s what this cancer has caused–we’ve watched an entire party’s leaders–governors and state level leaders, too–become anything but leaders and examples of what we want our people to aspire to. Instead, they’ve become embarrassments. We’re ashamed of them. They are a disgrace, but not because of party differences or platforms. We expect diversity and differences. It’s because they don’t, won’t, can’t respect, embrace, come to the table, go to work. They have failed. Completely. They’ve hurt us economically–wasted millions and millions of taxpayer dollars voting 50, 60, 70 or more times to overthrow just one thing. Fixated. Immature. Infantile. Irresponsible. So not worthy of the offices they hold. They don’t know how to play fair or to apply the same rules to everyone, including themselves.

We don’t respect them anymore, and we’ve moved past embarrassment and shame to a total disconnect from them, save their occasional leaders and former leaders who bravely step away from the pack, raise their voices, tell the truth, and declare that what is wrong–IS wrong.

For the past 7 years in our country’s history, this present Republican leadership has more than missed their moment to prove that they are able to look past color, past race and see a highly intelligent, highly cerebral, proactive, compassionate leader whose heart is for the people. There was nothing and there is nothing about our President that they couldn’t have worked with if they had ever tried. But his blackness and nothing he has said or done has always been their obstacle. Simply the fact that he is a black man that sits above them in the highest office of the land has evoked all the hatred that’s been running through their veins all along. They were never going to work with him because to do so would mean they’d have to submit to his authority and office AS President. They’d have to be humble and willing to acknowledge that this black man IS President and to convene in his Oval Office. To dignify and respect a black man that they consider themselves far superior to? Not this group. They’ve shown us what their intent was all along, and who they really are. The color of his skin is why they met before he began his first term and agreed to be 100% obstructionist.

That’s the only thing they’ve been faithful to. Certainly not the American people. Certainly not the Constitution. They use it to manipulate, but not for equality.

The old white boys network and the young ones alike have refused to fulfill their commitment to the people and do their jobs for the people they represent.  They missed the opportunity to move past political differences, past the color of his skin, past all the naysayers…and respect who we voted in to lead this country. They missed their moment in time to shine and be leaders…to move us away from what divides us and unite us instead. They’ve proven they can do nothing but further divide us.

Division’s running in their veins.

History will forever record that only we, the majority of the American voters, moved forward and made history in our shining moment. History will forever record that they missed theirs.

Well, this American refuses to share her legacy with them. There’s a complete disconnect. Instead, I stand with those in this country who don’t switch the Constitutional playbook based on color. I stand with those who don’t obstruct The Office based on the color of the man elected to sit in that chair.

I stand with those who are working and fighting to ensure that the democratic system applies to and works…for all of us. And I don’t care what color they are, or what party they belong to! That’s just pigment and labels.

Dear Republican leadership:  You have brought shame to a nation. You have made history for all the wrong reasons.

You have missed your moment to shine.