There are times when I have nothing to say, there really is nothing to say, only to feel.

I hate that this is feeling familiar to me now, I hate the same questions I find myself asking when I see the news: I hope it is not this kind of person, or that kind of person. I hope it can bring us together, not tear us apart. I worry I am getting used to it.

I hope the politicians speak to our best hopes and fears, not our worst. I hope they comfort the afflicted and seek to give us hope.

My heart breaks for the families of the dead and for all of the wounded.

We are becoming horrifically skilled at taking bullets out of people, and keeping them alive, but not at how to keep the bullets from getting there, or keeping us safe.

The gruesome photos of bleeding people, officers with rifles, officers who die, the frenzied news alerts, the awful images we will see again and again, a thousand times,  the bravery of the First Responders, the cascade of chilling tweets. I feel I have seen this so many times before, and I know I should not be seeing them at all.

My heart sinks knowing it will happen again and again, until we finally awaken to the real terror, the terror within.

I feel for the people who died and were hurt in this unimaginable tragedy, and I think of all of you who must wake up to yet another horror and hurt and struggle to know how to feel and move on with your lives. I hope I can lift you up and make you smile a few times today, here on the blog. I had this strange thought this morning that people like me are First Responders to, our job is to remember the color and light that exist in the world.

There are so many people showing the darkness.

I can hope that awful happening will bring people together, but I would be lying if I said I thought it would, at least not now. We do not seem to have yet learned the lessons the angels are trying to teach us.

I am moved by the accounts of brave and loving people helping one another, to me, the true American spirit, the real news, where the hope is.

In an hour or so, we will so those awful people – the vampires of our time –  shouting at one another on what we call the news, angering the angry and the weak minded, turning other people’s horror into their own success.

For me, a time to be soft and silent, to ask where the hope is, and to  post some simple photos that I hope will make you feel and smile and think. To offer something other than division and argument.

For me, a time to go inward. To take pictures, to walk and sit with myself. To listen to the silence. To be alone.

I will go to the Mansion, and try to do some good, perhaps they will need me and Red there. This morning, I’ll post photos in the hope they can take us out of ourselves and connect.

A time, I think to be gentle with one another, to put ourselves in the shoes of the suffering, to do whatever it we do when our heart breaks over what human beings sometimes to do one another.

To find our sacred spaces and go there, alone.

And to remember all of the good that comes after the shooting stops, all the hearts that reach out to help, all the love summoned in the name of empathy and humanity, the best of us I pray to my better angels to come down to me and show me the light and help me to never become accustomed to this awful new ritual in our country.

I ask in the name of the children and the innocent.

Where is hope? Inside of me.

Photos are on the way.  I’ll put my words away for awhile, in honor of the dead and the hurt. And my own need to think and reflect.