I awaken with tears. I awaken with an ache in my heart, sadness sitting heavy in my bones. I ache. All over. For this world. This earth where violence erupts again and again and for a moment, in the split second of bullets ripping through flesh in some far flung and not so far away corner of our world, I feel helpless, lost, frightened.

And I breathe.

I want to curl up into a ball and ask the world to please stop. To please quit doing these things we do to one another that cause such pain, such horror, such terror.

I want to plead with unseen faces, with bands of men and women gathered together in secret places where their desire to incite terror, inflict pain washes over them in a frenzy to release their pain, their anger, their terror on others. Please stop.

I want to gather my children and tell them to not be afraid, to not lose hope, to not give up on peace, on one another, on their capacity to change this world so desperately in need of changing.

And I breathe.

In moments like these, when violence explodes in a nightclub tearing apart the lives of so many as I lay sleeping, I awaken to my fear that we are too late. We have gone too far down this path of an eye for an eye vengeance multiplying in our streets, our cafes, our markets, our homes. That terror has taken up residence in the hearts and minds of too many of us to be overcome by Love.

Let Love be the way my heart cries out and still, I fear.

And so I breathe.

For today, for this moment right now where I understand so little of the moments others are experiencing that lead them to such dark and violent spaces they only want to lash out, to kill and maim and destroy others. Let me not give up hope. Let me not give into fear. Let me not give up.

Let me only DARE to LOVE.

Let us all who have not succumbed to terror, who have not given in to fear, who will not give into helplessness and the desire to kill one another, let us all DARE to LOVE.

And so I breathe and with each breath I ask for strength. I ask for hope. I ask for courage. To understand. To find compassion. To be forgiving. To be of Peace.

If I can do nothing more in this moment now to change the past, let me change this moment right now through Love. Love is the path to peace. Love is the path to understanding, compassion, kindness, tolerance. It is the way.

Let Love be my way. Let me only DARE LOVE.