11.22-Hate and assination on this date 1963.

11.22

On this day in 1963 I was in school about 90 miles NE of Dallas at about 12.30pm when we got news that President Kennedy had been shot in our beloved state of Texas. We were called into the main assembly hall of our school and informed regarding his death and our weekend and the next week were changed and in reality our whole generation was changed. Later we would lose Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy to assignation also. The Viet Nam war was raging and things seemed to be crazy.

There are have always been people who thought that violence was the answer to political division. Thankfully, we have had people like Martin Luther King who pushed for non-violent solutions to our problems. I have been able to visit Atlanta often in the last 17 years because my daughter and grandsons live here. He got much of his inspiration for a peaceful approach to his enemies from Jesus Christ.

I believe that people who have deep pain had rather focus on the badness of others rather than turn to God for grace and mercy. The more they dwell on the problem being a different person or party or country, the more anger energy flows out to the point of taking the life of another. The good news is that the answer to painful memories is grace and mercy rather than hate for the self and others.
This has been a year of violence and my heart still hurts for what happened to those peaceful worshippers at Sutherland Springs Baptist church.

Today, as I reflect on what Lee Oswald did that was evil on this day many years ago I will dwell on choosing things that move things in a positive direction.
"There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

Martin Luther King Jr.
Proverbs 25.21
If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink;