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Bare Trees in Fog

Who Shall We Take Aim at This Time?

Writer's picture: Marie LaureMarie Laure


For the second week in a row, I am asking myself what I might say regarding the "news du jour". You are probably asking what else is there to say? We have exhausted these explanations: lone wolf, angry young man, deranged teen, etc. etc. etc. You know where this is going. While we have run out of words, those who aim to destroy life will never run out of guns, unless we do something.


From the school room to the golf course, there is no safe place when guns are prevalent in every town in this country. Don't start with the second amendment; start by stopping the sale of weapons without regard for who buys these lethal tools with only one thing in mind: to use it!


Things are out of control when presumptive candidates for our country's most important position duck for cover on the fifth hole huddled beneath paid Secret Service. Never mind our children going into lockdown with nothing between them and their teacher. (Thank you teachers!)


Guns are aimed with equal force and will against candidates in the public eye and children in the public school. Guns are not being used in these cases for self protection, as the "right to bear arms" proclaims. A golf club against an AK-47 machine gun is no match anymore than a teacher's ruler against a rifle. Caught in the crossfire are those without guns who have the same right under the second amendment to bear arms, but they don't in their everyday lives while golfing and learning. This has become an intergenerational issue to resolve, once and for all. Boycotts can be effective if you want to stop a product from being sold. But, those who do not buy guns cannot take such a stand to make a change. Protests raise up voices in anger against injustices. But, it is too little too late after death ends an innocent life.


  • Who then shall we take aim at to end violent murder by guns in public places?


  • Who owns this responsibility?


  • We do!


We vote for or against gun laws each time we vote for a candidate on our local level, our state level, our national level. Before you vote on November 5, find out if your candidate of choice is on the record regarding gun laws. If not, ask them where they stand.


gunsensevoter.org* is a resource site that lists ALL U.S. candidates in 2024 who advocate for stronger gun laws. Looking up your state is as easy as logging on to take aim in the voting booth at anyone who refuses to protect you and me as we go about our day.



*project of Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America





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© 2023 by Marie Laure

​Six Stages of Pilgrimage:

  • The Call:

  • The opening clarion of any spiritual journey. Often in the form of a feeling or some vague yearning, a fundamental human desire: finding meaning in an overscheduled world somehow requires leaving behind our daily obligations. Sameness is the enemy of spirituality.

  • The Separation:

  • Pilgrimage, by its very nature, undoes certainty. It rejects the safe and familiar. It asserts that one is freer when one frees oneself from daily obligations of family, work, and community, but also the obligations of science, reason, and technology.

  • The Journey:

  • The backbone of a sacred journey is the pain and sacrifice of the journey itself.  This personal sacrifice enhances the experience; it also elevates the sense of community one develops along the way.

  • The Contemplation:

  • Some pilgrimages go the direct route, right to the center of the holy of holies, directly to the heart of the matter. Others take a more indirect route, circling around the outside of the sacred place, transforming the physical journey into a spiritual path of contemplation like walking a labyrinth.

  • The Encounter:

  • After all the toil and trouble, after all the sunburn and swelling and blisters, after all the anticipation and expectation comes the approach, the sighting. The encounter is the climax of the journey, the moment when the traveler attempts to slide through a thin veil where humans live in concert with the Creator.

  • The Completion and Return:

  • At the culmination of the journey, the pilgrim returns home only to discover that meaning they sought lies in the familiar of one's own world. "Seeing the place for the first time . . ."

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