My City Grieves

I am from Buffalo, NY.

We are home to the Buffalo Sabres hockey team and the Buffalo Bills football team. There are other smaller sports that folks in Buffalo follow, and the community is into museums, music, theater, the waterfront, amazing restaurants and the close proximity to Niagara Falls. I could go on.

We are not a big city and we are not a small town. We are the butt of many a weather joke and people often don’t get our identity as a mid-sized metropolitan area with a neighborhood feel. Some say there is only a degree or two of separation from one Buffalonian to another because we all “know someone who knows someone.” But much of the world had not really known us until now. As of last week we became known as the town with the grocery store massacre.

And the city grieves.

We grieve the loss of innocent people doing their regular old Saturday grocery run being gunned down by a crazed killer.

We grieve the fact that someone had to drive 4 hours to our region to do the dirty deed.

We grieve all the racial interpretations that led to this tragedy and we grieve that the mere color of someone’s face makes them a target.

God grieves, too.

God does not want hatred in this world. God does not want hatred in people, and does not want hatred present in anyone’s heart.

But not everyone knows God and follows a righteous path. Not everyone wants to know God and follow a righteous path.

And so we suffer pain, distrust, anguish, sin and grief.

I have no answers. I have few words, but I utter a prayer to my Lord that his beloved watchful eye will be on my community and his powerful hand will be on the healing.

And for those who believe it is true to hate those who look different, I say look around!

NO ONE looks the same. EVERYONE looks different.

But deep inside we love the same.

My city grieves and I pray for healing to come.