Editor’s Note: Rev. Courtney Willis wrote the following after the Uvalde school shooting. She shared it again after yet another school shooting in Georgia this week.

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Look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others…

It’s a lovely sentiment.

But it feels hard.

And so we freeze.

Because we like things the way they are.

We like our rights and our freedoms and our pursuits of happiness.

But it turns out those things sometimes get in the way of others’ interests.

You know- like going to the grocery store, or to temple, or to school.

And we like to place blame.

And we like to point fingers.

And we do that until we are weary.

Until the energy is depleted and the ashes are scattered and we hold our collective breath…

Until next time.

And we lament that nothing can be done.

We cry out to God about how long it will be.

We beg our Lord Jesus to come.

Forgetting that we have the ability

No- the authority

No- the calling

To be co-creators of an earth that is as it is in heaven.

But we continue to claim that it can’t be fixed.

And we become complicit through our apathy, our languid movements, our fierce independence.

Because it certainly won’t happen in my house… or my town… or my school.

Until it does.

And then… 

It’s a shame that it can’t be fixed.

…Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.