It is almost a week since the slaughter of 49 people in a nightclub in Orlando. If the media is any indication of what is true, our nation is sad, angry, confused and shaken. At the very least those are good descriptors of where I am.

Sad, intensely, that 49 lives have been taken. They were mercilessly killed by a man wielding guns who in my humble opinion had no right obtaining or owning. Somewhere on line I read that it is easier to buy an assault rifle than Sudafed. (Probably an exaggeration but you get the point. We choose what we regulate and guns seem to be too sacred for the Feds to touch.)

We are angry at each other and we are angry at our elected officials who refuse to do anything about this plague of violence. I think J.J. Goldberg’s editorial in The Forward is right on target. He asks, “Why the Orlando Massacre has America so angry at itself”. We are so angry we can’t hear each other talk; we are so angry we can’t even agree on the causes of the attack. Is it the easy access to assault weapons? Is it Radical Islam and the actual or emotional ties that the killer had to ISIS? Is it homophobia or even self-loathing? Is it mental instability? Is it one of the above, some of the above or all of the above.

I don’t mean to be cute or make light of the tragedy. My answer is it is all of the above. It is too easy to get assault weapons in this country and if someone is on the no fly list and they are too dangerous to be sitting on a plane next to me it feels too obvious that they are too dangerous to have a semi-automatic rifle. And that is on Congress. And that is on our public representatives who are supposed to insure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Well who cares for “the people” in Washington? Not those who think guns are more sacred than human lives, or the gun lobby is too powerful to go up against.

I can feel my anger rising as I write.  I am not afraid to say the words “radical Islam”. I am also not afraid to say the words “Jewish extremists and Christian crusaders”. My point being that every religion and culture has those who pervert their fundamental message and use them for their own political purposes. I feel for my gay friends. This hit their community extra hard. All the pride and progress of the last few years diminished. It is a terrible reminder that we have a long way to go for GLBT equality and acceptance. And how young? But I guess that’s no criteria – they were younger still at Sandy Hook.

No, I don’t care what you say: It is not about ISIS; it is not about Homophobia: It is not about mental instability; it is about guns. It is about easy access. Someone will always find a cause worth killing for. It is about the cowardice of congress. It is about the failure of our representatives to protect us. It is about their interest, not ours. It is disgusting.

I have set my computer screen saver to change pictures every five minutes and randomly select them from the photos I have loaded either from my camera, my phone, slides I have had digitalized, images shared. I readily admit that I have no idea how to control the choices that fade in and out and I notice that some pictures rotate more often than others. I fantasize that the computer is laughing at me and playing hide and seek with my pictures.

Each picture is a memory and a slice of my life. Maya and I are feeding a dolphin in one; the illusive, mysterious moss hanging on twisted trees in the squares of Savannah; aqua green water peppered by red and white buoys floating in the Bay of Nhatrang, Vietnam; the beige sand of a Moroccan flea market punctuated with the saffron and purple head coverings of the women hiding their faces and shopping for bargains; stages of life reflected in my different body shapes, hair styles, clothing choices, each one a sacred moment, each one an opportunity to mentally move along the arc of my life.

Sometimes the computer program zooms in and only part of the picture shows up on the screen. This morning I had a close up of my smile and my teeth – my dentist would have been proud – I laughed when I saw it but I think I could use some whitener. Sometimes I have to challenge myself to figure out where we are. Invariably the process touches me in places deep and inside even when I can’t remember the name of that site, city or setting.   It is often tinged with sadness and loss; but more often than not, if I let myself linger in the memory, I feel a profound gratitude for that which I have been given. Each moment is a different letter in a blessing formula.

But my challenge to myself is to extend that thankfulness to all of life, even that which is not apparently striking. I tend to take pictures of the beautiful and surprising but that is not the complete picture of life. There are photos I did not take with a camera but are still imbedded in my internal album: my mother curled up in her bedroom deep in depression; the steps I tripped up when I was given the honor of opening the door of my grandfather’s synagogue where the hearse stopped so that the Cantor could ask God to bind his soul in the bond of eternal life.; the dreams that astonish me in content and vividness in the middle of the night – the ones that wake me up and sometimes serialize themselves after I fall back to sleep. And I could go on.

All of these teach; all of these make me who I am; the good, the beautiful, the embarrassing, the disappointments, the successes, the endeavors I wish I had finished and the relationships I wish I had done differently. All of these are opportunities for introspection and growth. Even those out of focus.

Enough, it may be cloudy right now but there is still a golf ball wanting to be hit.