Word is just in that the suspect in the terrible shooting in Charleston has been arrested.
My first reaction upon hearing this terrible news was to remember back to those terrible days during the Civil Rights movement, with the assassinations, bombings and lynchings that were part of the daily experience of so many of our sisters and brothers. It felt like nothing had changed over the last fifty years.
May we all please keep everyone involved in this most recent tragedy in our prayers and thoughts. And, may we also find the courage to take steps to confront and eliminate the causes that lead to such hatred and violence.
Deacons Today: Servants in a Servant Church 
I will pray for you. If your first thought is of the civil rights era and not of the here and now tragedy, help is needed to move beyond that time. We all need to see where God leads us now. I pray for all those families affected by this and that they be lifted in God’s hand.
Thanks for your prayers, but don’t be idiotic. Of course our prayers go out to the current victims. But to see this as an isolated incident misses the bigger picture of ongoing hatred and violence which remain in our beloved country. If you think I’ve missed the point, you might re-read the very title of the piece, because we do need to pray for all in Charleston. I join you in prayer.
God bless,
Deacon Bill
Over this side of the pond, Bill, we watch in horrified fascination as more and more victims are killed by guns, but it doesn’t seem possible to change the law. And we listen to ranting right-wingers, whose ignorance seems so profound as to bear no resemblance to the real world and who play to people’s fears. We are also dazed by the racism still so inherent in much of American society. Not that we are much better here, human nature being what it is. We do pray for you. Please pray for us, that we won’t be judgemental, but will play our part in all our churches in modelling true discipleship, mutual respect, constructive words and actions and willingness to change. Lord have mercy.