Saturday was to be a busy day… morning workout, followed by our Annual Craft Fair, help with the post-fair cleanup with High school students,  then off to the LGBT Asylum Gala at the DCU Center. Then tragedy…

As I look at the synagogue, it reminds me of so many other places of worship planted in the midst of our urban communities. The exterior could just as well have had a Covenant church’s logo and name.

Today, as a nation and as people of faith we mourn the loss of eleven individuals who were simply living out their faith and doing what came most naturally to them – worshipping their God. We condemn this recent act of hatred and violence and redouble our efforts to “fight hate, teach tolerance, and seek justice” as so well articulated in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s motto.

It is easy to be fooled that anti-Semitism is a European problem, something that Jews escaped as they sought safety and home in America. But one only needs to dig just below the surface to find evidence of such violence and hate. People might think that we are “seeing things that are not there” but wisdom knows better.

As the historic and rich cultural center of Pittsburgh’s Jewish life gather to grieve their loss and are forced to revisit wounds of their past, let us form a sound circle of love around them, reminding them of the unquenchable love of the God of all creation.