Children Playing and a Shooting in Carlsbad

Is there anything more beautiful than young children ( say age 10 or less) playing together well?  Watching the imagination, the effort, the joy, all give me great satisfaction and pleasure. I suspect this or similar feelings exist in all adults, though I think it likely the awareness of these feelings grows as one ages. 

I live on a beautiful street that is mostly populated by younger couples with children.  My kids are gone, but I watch the kids closely. Every parent appears to take interest in all children not just their own.  Driving up our street is similar to driving up a holler in Kentucky, all adults look to see who is visiting and what they are doing.  Drive too fast and a father may jump in front of your car and ask you politely, but firmly, to slow down.  Do it twice and someone won't be so polite.

Today five children rang the doorbell selling rings and bracelets.  They had  samples, hand drawn brochures and a list of birth dates so that they could  email birthday wishes.  The rings and bracelets were made of duct tape . I bought a black ring for me and a pink one for my wife.  Hand made on the spot with great care and joy. A well spent 50 cents.

Watching the kids close the deal and manufacture for the first time I thought about their diversity. Diversity being something I don't think about at all. My view is either you are a ballplayer or you aren't,  Diversity has nothing to do with it. You can play or you can't.

So if I classified the kids based on looks and my knowledge of their family I come up with: One Japanese Hawaiian mix, one Scandinavian white, one Latin white mix, and two (siblings) just white, if Armenian is white.

As I said I don't pay much attention to diversity or classification. To me they are just kids from my street growing up together.  It is beautiful.


So I ask myself, how could someone do this:  Carlsbad Shooting
The answer is I don't know.  What perversion of the human mind could cause a man to do this?  I can't conceive of thinking of doing it.  Of course mental illness is involved, but isn't it always? Isn't any perverse act a result of mental illness? A turning away from what is good, from what is Godly? What does that tell us anyway? It tells us nothing except another shell of a man, a man without direction, without love of others, without values to live for, really not a man at all,  attempted a senseless act of violence.  Thankfully, he was as incompetent of a shot as he was a man. Thankfully, the construction workers were men.

Now do not think I fail to understand the danger of untreated mental illness.  I have first hand experience with it in my family and know that untreated it can cause great harm.  Nonetheless I still place responsibility on the individual and his family because that is the only place where the love, faith and hope exists in sufficient depth to truly overcome mental  illness.  Only love cures. Only faith sustains the love. Only hope sustains the faith. The rest is the application of medication to treat symptoms.
 :