SpokaneFāVS hosted the Coffee Talk: ‘Building Dialogue for Justice in Response to Hate and Violence’.

Constructive action is the key to changing the trajectory of these issues — informed, involved citizens getting off social media and actually getting to know one another, working together over time to fix a problem. To paraphrase historian Ernest Renan, ‘a nation is a daily direct vote,’ a desire to continue living together in solidarity and a recognition of our shared past.

In the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, there is no official doctrine or dogma concerning Heaven and Hell. However, they are understood from a consensus of theological opinions and commentary of the saints and church fathers.

As District of Columbia police officer Daniel Hodges, who was crushed in a door by insurrectionists that day, put it: “It was clear the terrorists perceived themselves to be Christians.”

The concept of a heavenly afterlife for the faithful (and a hellish one for their persecutors) seems to have become appealing in Judaism during a time of great persecution: if faithfulness was not rewarded on earth, then it would be later by a just God.

Like most of us watching the news recently, I was shocked and horrified by the shootings in the Uvalde school on May 24th. In a country numb from hundreds of shootings, I was surprised I could still feel anything about them at all.