Barb Caffrey's Blog

The weather here in Southeastern Wisconsin is bad. It’s been hot, humid, and nasty for the past several days…this on top of the previous few weeks of marginal to outright bad air quality (this for everyone, not just asthmatics like me).

Otherwise, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. The shootings of the Minnesota lawmakers — the assassinations of one and her husband (Melissa and Mark Hortman), and the attempted assassinations of another and his wife (John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman) — have dwelled upon my mind. It is deeply upsetting that there are people in this country who do such awful things.

I’ve been saying this for years, mind, over the various terrible things that have happened. Not all of it has happened to politicians. Sometimes police have been shot (such as at a grocery store in Colorado) and killed while doing their jobs. (Indeed, there were police who were trying to keep order on January 6th, 2021, who got badly hurt. A few later died and there were at least ten who had significant injuries that caused them to retire early from the police force. Look up Michael Fanone’s name to find out what happened to him, that day.) There have been school kids killed for what seems like no reason whatsoever (Sandy Hook, Columbine, Uvalde).

I don’t know what the answers are to stop these things, especially as what tends to work in other countries does not work well in the United States. (Such as controlling the flow of automatic weapons. Note I didn’t say all weapons. The Second Amendment to the Constitution assuredly believed people should keep some weapons, though at the time it was written, gunsmithing was not very far along and automatic weaponry and semiautomatic weapons were not even a glimmer in a creator’s eye.)

But one thing I do know is, staying silent doesn’t work.

I condemn all of these various things that I’ve discussed. I have condemned them many times on my blog with other, awful things that have happened (including the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ). And I most definitely condemn the assassination of the Hortmans and the attempted assassinations of the Hoffmans. I think if you believe in the Bible, as the shooter who assassinated the Hortmans and nearly managed to kill the Hoffmans supposedly did, that you need to look at the Ten Commandments again.

One of them is, “Thou shalt not kill.” Sometimes that is translated as “Thou shalt not murder.”

The shooter’s part-time roommate (I am not naming the shooter as I never do here at my blog) said in several places that he knew his roommate the shooter wasn’t happy with politicians. But the roommate also said that doing something like this is flat-out crazy. He never suspected the shooter. Pointed out that both he (the roommate) and the shooter had voted for Trump (there was a conspiracy theory going around saying that it was a leftwing activist who went after the Hortmans and Hoffmans for “not being left enough,” but that’s not the case).

I say this to point out that it’s more important to follow Jesus’s proposed eleventh commandment, that being “Love one another as I have loved you.”

I also want you to think about this: If Jesus were here now, who do you think he’d be helping? The homeless on the street, or the billionaires jetting from island to island? Would he be more likely to help the poor Mary Magdalenes of this world (i.e., prostitutes) or would he help those who already have power consolidate it into their two hands and never let it go?

If you honestly think that Jesus, if he came to Earth today, would not try to help the homeless and would not try to help contemporary Mary Magdalenes, I don’t know what to say to you.

“But Barb,” you protest. “Why wouldn’t he want to help the billionaires be better people?”

I think Jesus would want to do that. But if time was limited — and being in a mortal body, time is always limited — he’d help those who obviously needed it first. The drunks. The indigent. The folks trying their best who can’t catch a break. The prostitutes, especially those who’ve been human trafficked.

I do think that current-day billionaires should look at two people to perhaps give them some sort of enlightenment. The first is Bill Gates, who has vowed to give away his entire fortune before he dies. The second is, of all people, Cornelius Vanderbilt, as Vanderbilt’s philanthropy was almost as legendary as his ability to make lots and lots of money.

But as it’s very unlikely any of them will read my blog, I’ll leave the rest of you with this:

Be your best self. Care about others. Pay attention, and do what you can to alleviate other people’s pain. If you can make a positive difference for someone, do it.

That, to my mind, is what any positive religious influence, whether it’s Jesus, Confucius, the Buddha, Joseph Smith, or Baha’ullah, has hoped for us to do.

Also, keep listening to the new Pope. He has his head on straight. (You don’t have to agree with him 100% of the time. I think it’s impossible to agree with anyone 100% of the time.)

For those of you who feel as I do, stuck in the Void and wondering if anything you do will ever matter all that much, keep holding a positive thought as best you can.

One day at a time. Sometimes, one hour at a time, or one minute at a time. Just do your best to help others, and “Love one another the way I loved you,” as Jesus said. (Or as the Wiccans say, “Do what you want so long as you harm none.”)

P.S. The Hoffmans look on their way to a full recovery. I am very glad about this.

P.P.S. In case there’s any doubt, I condemn all violence. As Jon Stewart said last week on the Daily Show (Monday’s edition), “I don’t give a flying **** as to why this man” (meaning the shooter in MN) “did what he did.” (And yes, he said the actual word. I try not to do that, as if I started typing expletives all the time I’d get nothing done. But I did sympathize with Stewart while he used his own.)

P.P.P.S. I also am quite upset that the Hortmans’ faithful dog, a Golden Retriever, was shot. The Hortman children had to make the decision to put the poor dog down. Melissa Hortman, former Democratic Speaker of Minnesota’s lower house, was known for walking her dog, rain or shine, several times a day. That an innocent, loving animal was killed — as he wouldn’t have had to be put down without that shooter doing those atrocious and reprehensible things — in addition to the Hortmans themselves just angers me on a visceral level that I can’t quite explain.