Dayton and El Paso

Yesterday morning as I attempted to process the news about the shootings in Dayton and El Paso, the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" emerged, slowly coming into focus from the recesses of my mind. It had been years since I'd heard the song and so I couldn't remember most of the lyrics, but I knew that the essence of the song was what I was feeling. It's a song that asks questions whose answers are either so elusive we'll never find them, or perhaps right in front of our face if we could only see. I happened to have the song in a book of folk songs I own, and when I took it out and started playing I found the lyrics to be just as relevant to 2019 as they were to 1963. I can not understand what could bring someone to commit a mass murder, and I don't have the solution to this ugly problem, but I thought I'd share a couple verses of the song with you.

"Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan

P.S. The shooting in Dayton, Ohio hit particularly close to home (literally and figuratively) because Mike and I have friends that live there, as it's so close to where we are from and Mike lived there for two years after college. My heart goes out to everyone affected there and in El Paso, and in all of the other communities that have experienced similar tragedy.