As we sit in our office today…gunshots ring out. They are close. I duck.

We watch young men run with guns. Young men who were just trying to kill each other…if someone’s dead, someone will snitch. Someone will go to jail. And for what? Territory? You looked at me wrong? You don’t respect my affiliation? You screwed me in a deal?

My boys play in that park. My wife takes them there to swim in the wading pool in the summer. Meanwhile, other boys try to kill each other there. There’s bullet casings in the parking lot outside our window. Pastor Kevin watched the dude shooting fifteen feet from him as he sat in his office…

What the hell?

I guess I have something to stretch into 12 minutes of prayer for today.