It begins here:

"You get your temper from your father's side of the family, not mine."

"Whatever problems you have, you can blame them on your mother."

It progresses:

"If your generation were not so irresponsible and selfish, there would be stability in our future."

We acquiesce:

"Were you a jock in high school or a nerd, hipster,  Goth, R.O.T.C. or Jesus freak?"

Soon, we learn that there is safety and comfort in numbers:

"It is the Republicans that got us into this mess and the Democrats who will get us out.  Vote for our side."

And finally we decide that if we are right, than they must be wrong:

" What does he know?  He's just a fear-mongering Christian, a greedy Jew, a terrorist Muslim." 

"I'm glad I'm not one of them."

I don't believe in coincidence.

On 9-11-2001 Christine Green, the youngest victim of the Tucson shooting, was born into a world that was paralyzed by grief and polarized by fear.  

She was too young to choose sides or to comprehend the insidious emotion of hatred.  She simply was.

On  1-9-2011, Christine Green was taken out of a world that was paralyzed by grief and polarized by fear.  The individual numbers in those dates remained the same; only their sequence had changed.  

There is an urgent need right now to look beyond the obvious and read the signs of the times.   The date of her birth and of her death each add up to the number Five.  In Numerology Five is the number of change;  more specifically, change in the midst of chaos.

I don't believe in coincidence.

The drawing that accompanies this text was finished on the day of the shooting.  I had originally intended it to be for my son, an inmate, and for all of the men and women locked behind penitentiary walls.

But on that day, as I watched in disbelief while the various camps circled their wagons and hurled blame at one another,  I realized that we are the inmates and that as long as we swaddle our apprehensions in cunning layers of division and blame, we will remain sentenced for life to a prison of ignorance, rage and loss.

Inside each of us there is a wall bound together with a mortar composed of fear and pride whose bricks are the unexamined detritus of our prejudice.  They are those hard-baked thoughts that tell us that all Whites are imperious racists,  Blacks are inferior,  Hispanics are lazy,  Jews are greedy,  Christians are simple-minded,  Liberals are Socialist radicals, Conservatives are self-righteous,  Muslims are terrorists,  Atheists and Pagans are evil,  Homosexuals are depraved,  Foreigners can't be trusted, Priests are pedophiles,  Athletes are stupid,  Actors are superficial, Intellects are arrogant, the Young are naive, the elderly are obsolete,  the Humble are weak,  the Wealthy are indifferent and the Poor are ignorant.

But most of them just say, "You are wrong, and I am right."

I don't believe in coincidence.

And I don't want to believe that a little girl who was slain by a madman; a product of our collective indifference to love, which is the object of our humanity; on a date that mirrors that of her birth, both pointing us to the message that the separatist paradigms within tribes, classes, races, religions, political parties and ideological casts have got to change- has died in vain.

For my part I would rather be taken out of this world while attempting to love and understand my supposed enemy than to remain alive while attempting to prove that I am right.

Christine Green was only nine years old.  Nine, the sacred number of harmony, Divine Will, eternity, creation, completion and endings.  She was a ballerina, a daughter, a big sister, a friend, a student and a bright little harbinger of hope.

She was not one of Them.

She was one of US.

We ALL are.

I don't believe in coincidence.

It is time to wake up. 

Illustration text:  Freedom is a state of mind.  Peace cannot exist around you if it does not exist within you.  Forgive all, especially yourself.  Happiness is a choice.  The only way out is by going within.  Now matters.  Listen to the silence.