Saving innocent lives

This is for those who have lost "heart" (courage and confidence) from natural or man-made disasters. It has become a problem like an "elephant in the room" - so big it cannot be ignored, as there are 10,000,000+ traumatized (overwhelmed by a catastrophic event) persons in the United States, alone. Recovering a sense of optimism means to trust that things will get better. Warriors head coach Steve Kerr: "When are we going to do something?... It’s pathetic. I’ve had enough.” And a celebrity: "...so broken by the ways in which we, as a nation, have become conditioned to unbearable heartbreak." Yolanda King: "...not right and left, but right and wrong, and that doesn’t just mean thoughts and prayers.” That is, someone in a wrong place at a wrong time - survivors of mass shootings, hate crimes (mothers sobbing at government hearings), those witnessing a terrifying event... or the Lahaina, Hawaii firestorm (below) - residents fleeing their vehicles on Front Street, jumping into the ocean to escape the flames. They need something other than just money.

Time to do something about it - we have an extensive online program (free, of course) to help people get a life back. We also want to do a cross monument - and this is what we are raising the funds for - which will have professional videos online (of a large stainless-steel cross when it is done being built) ...to inspire and encourage people to read (Americans are slow to read) at least some of the ACG program. The GoFundMe is lengthy - a person might scan the different paragraphs - it's a silent humanitarian crisis. What our organization, American Cross Global 501(c)(3), does is to provide a Christian values program, so that people may recover some "heart". A Federal government authority: “May the Lord be near to the brokenhearted, because they’re going to need a lot.” Not crass beliefs, just what works. "Approximately sixty-four million Americans— one in five —identify as 'spiritual but not religious'. They reject organized religion but maintain a belief in something larger than themselves (The Atlantic, January 2018)." 

For two years, there was a COVID-19 nightmare. Schools and universities shut down. CDC suggesting gatherings over 50 people be canceled. People stocked up on necessities - market shelves empty; hoarding of toilet paper and bottled water. Nightclubs, theaters and concert venues closed. Over 72,000,000 confirmed coronavirus infections, over a million dead. Entire countries, overseas, placed on lockdown. Other matters have replaced this. “After 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last week, extraordinary trauma continues to haunt several survivors and the community alike (CNN, June 1, 2022).” “It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around the fact that a 6-year-old 1st grader brought a loaded handgun to school and shot a teacher; however, this is exactly what our community is grappling with today,” Newport News Mayor Phillip D. Jones said January 7, 2023. An NBC headline: "Shooting at Nashville Christian school leaves 3 children and 3 adults dead (March 28, 2023)". And a headline in USA Today, May 7, 2023: "Gunman kills 8 in rampage at Texas mall in nation's 200th mass shooting of 2023". These problems aren't going away. And this is what happens when you do nothing. 

"People going about their daily lives in schools, parks, grocery stores and medical buildings in communities big and small must now grapple with the trauma and grief that lingers when the shooting stops (CNN, May 8, 2023)." "There is a special place in hell for people who watch all this happen and choose to do nothing (Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez)." "Scientists say the novel coronavirus circulating the globe probably came from bats and passed through another mammal - perhaps a pangolin, one of the most trafficked animals in the world - before jumping to humans (USA Today, May 20, 2020)." "These wet markets [in China] are really perfectly conducive to spillover events, because you have so many different species coming in. You have animals stacked on top of each other and blood, feces and other fluids flow from their cages (George Wittemyer, associate professor of wildlife and conservation biology at Colorado State University)." “You go to these markets and you've got bats sitting in cages on top of pangolins or civet cats or dogs. It’s just a giant petri dish of viruses (Jan Vertefeuille, a senior adviser for wildlife conservation with the World Wildlife Fund)."

During August 2020, as well as November, every eighty seconds another American died of coronavirus, which is more than a thousand lives lost every twenty-four hours. On December 9, 2020 it was over 3000 dead, in one day - as many as on 9/11. “The origin of the new coronavirus is the wildlife sold illegally in a Wuhan seafood market,” Gao Fu, director of China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press briefing in January 2020. In earlier years, he conducted research at Harvard Medical School under David Bishop and Ernest Gould. Children can be haunted for years after a school shooting. Until we come to our senses, and do something about it, it will continue. “Samantha Haviland had survived Columbine. On that day, April 20, 1999, Haviland ran from gunfire and heard some of it, too, but she didn’t get shot or see a bullet strike anyone else. The nightmares — always of being chased — lingered for years, but she didn’t think she deserved help, not when classmates had died, been maimed or had witnessed the carnage firsthand. Camille Paradis Dec. 14, 2012, had huddled in darkened classrooms while 20 of her schoolmates were shot dead at Sandy Hook Elementary. For years, Camille’s trauma surfaced through debilitating panic attacks.” 

Or a small elementary school in Townville, S.C. “Ava, who’d run away when the shooting started, suffered from crippling post-traumatic stress in its aftermath. What makes America’s youngest school shooting survivors the most vulnerable to lasting trauma is their view of the world around them (Washington Post, May 28, 2022).” And not only this. "While mass murders soak up the vast majority of the attention, more than half of America’s roughly 45,000 annual firearm deaths are from suicide (AP News, July 6, 2022)." In other words, the more a traumatic experience shatters your worldview, the harder it is to recover. People lose "heart" - and for those, or family members of those who've passed on, getting it back as soon as possible is an end goal. The organization has a massive program (done in e-book format): https://www.americancross.org - 135 topics (175 pages), twenty-five links (325 pages) to deal with calamities, using spiritual resources. 

Solutions are more complex than a political goodwill of "thoughts and prayers". The program may be translated into 103 languages. It cannot be enough.  ACG has a goal to create a spiritual but not religious monument - a cross, an iron angel, in southwestern Kansas. It is as a means to an end - to inspire people. It is about faith - being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see. People's lives have been torn to shreds, and they should have something to help. There are other monuments in the middle of nowhere: a) Crazy Horse Memorial - a large statue of the Native American chief Crazy Horse in the Black Hills, western South Dakota; b) White Sands National Monument - a big gypsum dunefield (similar to deserts in Algeria and Australia) in the Chihuahua Desert, southern New Mexico; c) Montezuma Castle National Monument - cliff dwellings built and used by the Sinagua people around 800 years ago, in central Arizona. 

A purpose of a cross is to help lift a person out of a pit of despair; this to be located near the geographical center of the lower forty-eight states, near Interstate 40. It is a universal concept - it can mean a power against evil. Discovering the power of the cross against unseen evil is penetrating the darkness. The medal of St. Benedict has this written on the back: "May the cross be my light. Step back, Satan...drink your own poison." Americans hate to read. But if they can look at videos of a large stainless-steel cross taken from the ground and from the air, placed online for them to view - they are more likely to look at three or four topics of interest on the ACG program, and move in a direction of a positive future. With a virtual tour, one can visit the site from home. When the monument is finished, there will be an online store wherein a person can purchase a cross, from their house. This is not crass commercialism, but might help people through a dark time. 

For normal, middle-class Americans, a cross means little, if anything. But for people who have survived a hate crime, or a myriad of other issues, and so are vulnerable, a cross means something to them. Again, for middle-class Americans, most have virtually no interest in spiritual resources. But for those who have been cut off from a normal life, they do need it. We want to raise funds for design work, and wind tunnel testing to create a workable structure through the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory (above) in Ontario, Canada. The wind engineering program will include a pressure study to take measurements at approximately 500 points. The Laboratory has carried out numerous studies on buildings and structures throughout the world. Results of the study will be put on this GoFundMe in an update. This structure has some vague similarities to the Grand Canyon Skywalk Bridge. A man-made wonder, it spans the rim of the Grand Canyon - as a horseshoe-shaped bridge with a glass bottom suspended 2000 feet above the canyon floor. A bridge, and a cross, mean something new and different.

This is in a "ballpark" of what has been raised for Carmen from Walmart Medical Bills, "I asked Carmen why she was working at 82 and she said because of her high medical bills." ($137,000); Rolling Fork Tornado Relief Fund, "All of the prayers and support of this Delta community are requested." ($159,000); Save the Potcakes [dogs] Bahamas, "It would mean the world to me to have your support saving the lives of homeless pets." ($215,000); A Doll Like Me, "I like to think of doll-making [as] more like a mission." ($260,000); Barrick Family Fund, "We would like to thank everyone who has offered their love and prayers as they embark on this incredibly difficult journey of grief and healing."($330,000); Donate to Help Miah, "She is a survivor from the Uvalde school shooting. She will need a lot of help with all the trauma that she is going through." ($480,000).

Mike Hill, Custodian at Covenant School Nashville, "All prayers, wishes and offers have been communicated to the Hill family, who continue to be eternally grateful for the love bestowed on their family." ($615,000); Help my grandmother recover from this trauma, "I am fundraising for my [Asian] grandmother that was racially attacked today on 3-17-21." ($1,000,000); Allen Tx Shooting-R.I.P. Kyu, Cindy and James Cho, "An afternoon that should have been filled with light, love and celebration unfortunately was cut short." ($1,870,000); Help the People of Lahaina and West Maui, "Lives lost, homes burnt to the ground, and businesses gone forever - the devastation is unfathomable." ($2,500,000); Ralph Yarl, "He mistakenly went to the wrong house. The man in the home opened the door, and shot him. The trauma that he has to endure and survive is unimaginable." ($3,475,000); The Mental Health Fund, "Anxiety, depression, grief...the world is hurting right now." ($4,275,000).

Help Thirsty Koalas Devastated by Recent Fires, "The support from the Australian and international community for the wildlife icon, the koala [mini-bear - 2'-3' in length]." ($5,300,000); Justice for Breonna Taylor, "Please help us continue to not only fight for 'Justice for Breonna Taylor' but fight for long judicial changes." ($6,850,000); Official George Floyd Memorial Fund, “...to cover funeral and burial expenses, mental and grief counseling, lodging and travel for all court proceedings...” ($14,720,000); Humboldt Broncos, a fatal bus crash in Saskatchewan, Canada ($15,100,000); Stand With Ukraine, "Ukrainians are proud and brave people who deserve our help in their time of need." ($37,050,000). If excess funds are raised for design work/wind tunnel testing from our campaign, they will be donated to St. Jude Children's Hospital, which deals with childhood cancer. Verification of funds given to the hospital will be posted in an update.

A goal is for people's well-being, so they can believe in themselves again. Please feel free to look at the material on the program - done in e-book format - by clicking on a topic of interest. This is not corny - emotional and obvious from having been used too often - rhetoric, having been worked on for fifteen years, by traumatized people who survived - for traumatized people who aren't. You can return to the table of contents through an icon "back to top", at the end of a topic. What we are trying to do is help people in despair out of their "pit", and allow them to lead a normal, healthy life again. It can be asked how this is going to help persons who lose heart. People just need to read and study the entire 500 pages, then they will understand how this works. The "e-book format" was done because scrolling through endless drop-down menus containing 135 topics and hundreds of pages of information could be frustrating to someone who is already trying to cope with trauma in their life. So, we decided to keep the information on the program as easy to sift through as possible. It's not just saving potcake dogs, making dolls for children, or helping thirsty Koala bears - these are people's lives in the fire. Four abused and neglected children, twenty veterans and 155 persons addicted to opioids die every day. When people lose heart, they may turn to drugs, crime or suicide. 

"Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday makes for grim reading. 93,331 people in the US died from drug overdoses last year, up from 70,980. This increase of nearly 30% is the highest year-on-year increase in at least two decades, and the total number of deaths is the highest ever recorded in a 12-month period. Opioids were responsible for nearly three-quarters of these deaths, with synthetic opioids responsible for nearly 57,000 deaths, or more than half. Last year, synthetic opioids killed just under 50,000 people. Among these synthetic opioids, fentanyl, a drug 50 times more potent than heroin, was 'primarily' the cause of death this year, the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics noted (RT, July 14, 2021)." It's not just in the United States: inside a Mariupol, Ukraine theater - about 600 died in a Russian bombing (below).

The theater was clearly marked, as can be seen in the photograph, on both sides and visible from the air with. . .CHILDREN. . . Newsweek did an article on February 4, 2022: COVID Orphans—Over 200,000 U.S. Children Have Lost A Parent or Caregiver to the Pandemic. ”Dr. Charles Nelson, a professor at Harvard University: ‘The reason we wanted to bring attention to this is that it was a hidden problem. People weren't looking at the secondary toll that the pandemic was having.’ In December, a bipartisan group of advocates known as the COVID Collaborative released a report—'Hidden Pain'—detailing how the death of a parent or caregiver can hinder a child's development for the rest of their lives, and how prolonged grief could also lead to depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and suicide.” In March 2019, a 19-year-old graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, Fl.) ended life, indirectly due to an AR-15. A few days later, a student at that school did the same.

Parents and organizations came together to discuss "what we can do to help students at MSD cope with trauma and depression (Robert Runcie, superintendent of schools)". And one day after this, the father of one of the twenty first-grade students killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook School (Newtown, Conn.) shooting, caused his own death. All within one week, all from suicide. Society "moves on" after a shooting - they didn't. A woman, who lost part of her leg during the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, underwent surgery in 2019 after being run over while crossing a street. She posted on social media: "Struck by a car while on a crosswalk. Thrown into the air and landed, crushing the left side of my body. Yesterday. I'm completely broken. More surgery to come." A mother, whose 24-year-old daughter was shot with eleven others at Century 16 in Aurora, Colo. in 2012 with an AR-15. "When you lose a child violently and publicly, there's an outpouring of support at first. Once the vigils are over and the media is gone, that's when things get really bad. The world moves on, and you don't." 

On May 25, 2020, during a height of the pandemic, George Floyd was choked out by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minn. "But how do you eliminate indifference? The image of Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, ignoring his pain, ignoring pleas from bystanders to let him up, to put him in the car, to look at him and see his suffering — quite frankly, to even acknowledge Floyd as a human being — you can’t legislate that out of someone. That's in the heart (Mitch Albom, author and columnist).“ This is no more, no less, than callous indifference to the suffering of others. "Prior to being placed on the ground, Floyd had exhibited signs of anxiety, complaining about having claustrophobia, and being unable to breathe. After being restrained, he became more distressed, still complaining of breathing difficulties, of the knee on his neck, and of fear of imminent death. After several minutes, Floyd stopped speaking (Wikipedia)." 

In California, there had been more death by suicide than death by virus. "'We’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks,' Dr. Mike deBoisblanc, lead trauma surgeon at the John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, told local media on Thursday, confirming the center had seen more deaths from suicide over the two-month lockdown period than deaths from coronavirus. Not only are the numbers of attempts 'unprecedented' but so is their seriousness, according to a trauma nurse at the clinic. 'I have never seen so much intentional injury,' nurse Kacey Hansen attested, adding the deaths are mostly young adults who are clearly not making 'cry for help' suicidal gestures. 'They intend to die.' (RT, May 23, 2020).” Or in Ukraine (below): the destruction of property, not being able to bathe, the homelessness, drunken soldiers and their looting.

There are over 5,000,000 refugees, and one in six Ukrainians have been displaced from their homes. Schools, hospitals and apartment buildings have been bombed. Civilians have been shot in their cars and on their bikes. These are the type of people who could really use what we have online in our program, as it is in 103 languages - 70% of Ukrainians are Orthodox Christian. At least the Russians didn't use one of their Poseidons, which is a 100-megaton nuclear device carried by an unmanned mini-submarine. This would cause a radioactive tsunami (tidal wave) that can devastate coastal cities. The nuke dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 was 15 kilotons. So this nuke is about 7000 times as large (a megaton is 1000 kilotons). MILITARY PTSD: British sergeant Trevor Coult was awarded the Military Cross, for his valor in Iraq and tours in Afghanistan. “It’s trauma on top of trauma, a constant high threat, over weeks and weeks and months.” Hard battles have been fought in America's history - like fighting Nazis in WWII (below). 

But in the present day - a post-traumatic stress disorder veteran to a VA therapist: "Your tools are broken." And - "Didn't serve, but my best friend was USAF. Came back depressed with a drinking problem under age 21, and killed himself a year later." "I didn't serve, but my brother did - shot himself in the head." "I've been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and PTSD. I'm almost obsessed with cleaning. I hate crowds - the 4th of July is a nightmare." A good example of it is We Die Young, a 2019 film about a veteran with issues. A new study from @CostsOfWar documents the crisis. "Among service members who have fought in the U.S. post-9/11 wars, four times as many have died of suicide than in combat. Our new report details factors unique to the post-9/11 era that lead to a rising number of U.S. soldiers taking their own lives, including a combination of multiple traumatic exposures, chronic pain, and public indifference to these wars." 

Not just veterans. "Now, amid the greatest global pandemic since the Spanish flu of 1918–1919, millions of nurses and medical professionals internationally are working around the clock. "Across Europe tens of thousands of medical staff have contracted the disease. They share images of exhausted colleagues - in Britain, a young nurse in her 20s working at King’s College Hospital in London took her own life while treating COVID-19 patients last week. Her colleagues found her unresponsive in her ward. Also last week in Italy, a 49-year-old nurse who worked in the COVID-19 ward of Jesolo hospital committed suicide, throwing herself into the Piave river in Cortellazzo, in the region of Venice (wsws.org, March 31, 2020)." People say that shootings, having occurred in the past couple of years, are due to stresses resulting from COVID-19. That may be a small part of it. "Community members are coming together to grieve following mass shooting at Highland Park's Independence Day parade. Seven people died and nearly 40 people were wounded after suffering gunshot wounds Monday morning (Patch, July 5, 2022)."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's reaction to mass shootings: "This is a time to value people's lives." In Los Angeles - homelessness. "It's a disgrace. We are not doing anything to alleviate a human tragedy...It is trash. It is rats. It is unchecked garbage, and people using buckets for bathrooms (Estela Lopez, executive director of the Central City East Association)." On the southern border - "cages". "The overwhelming majority of [Central American] children are asylum seekers. They are already fleeing from the worst trauma we can imagine. Never before have I seen conditions as degrading and inhumane as I witnessed in Clint, Texas. The children were hungry, dirty, sick, scared (Elora Mukherjee, Columbia Law School)." On July 28, 2019, Santino Legen, 19, shot and killed three persons - aged 6, 13 and 25 in Gilroy, California. Big Mike's Gun and Ammo in Fallon, Nevada, who sold the WASR-10 semi-automatic rifle (similar to an AK-47), posted on Facebook: 

"The shooter in CA, I hope you rot in hell. We pray for the victims." Six days later, twenty were killed and twenty-six wounded at a Walmart shopping center in El Paso, Texas. Less than 24 hours after that, nine were killed in Dayton, Ohio, by a man wearing body armor. Less than a month later, in and around Odessa, Texas, seven were killed - twenty-one injured, in a drive-by shooting spree. "In California’s largest mass shooting this year, a gunman opened fire at a San Jose light rail yard Wednesday morning, killing nine people and dying of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound (Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2021)." Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “What the hell’s going on in the United States of America? What the hell’s wrong with us? And when are we going to come to grips with this?” What's going on, is that anyone trying to do anything about it, is ignored.  

"California has long had a propensity to burn. Its record of fire begins underwater, where ancient blazes left their stories in charcoal deposits. Many [wildfire] survivors describe feeling fragile and less capable of managing stress for years after a fire. Some recall looking for incinerated possessions and breaking down when they realize they would never find them (The Atlantic, July 20, 2020)." A nurse commented about what it is like to experience a wildfire. "It feels like a war zone. And the smoke really impacts that feeling, because you can't escape it (Clarissa Carson, intensive care nurse, Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, Oregon)." In 2020, alone, 10.1 million acres burned in the United States. In 2021, the Dixie Fire, the third largest wildfire on record in California, turned the town of Greenville into a wasteland. “'It looks like a bomb went off,' said Ryan Meacher, 37, whose father’s house in Greenville was one of many that burned down. 'There is nothing left.' (New York Times, August 6, 2021)" 

"The American West is burning more quickly than it has in a decade. New Mexico has been fighting its two biggest wildfires on record for more than a month. About 3 million acres of U.S. land — almost the size of Connecticut — have already burned this year (New York Times, June 20, 2022)." This was written one day before summer started. Achieving more of a balance between materialism and spirituality may help these people heal from tragedy. On November 5, 2017, Devin Patrick Kelley of New Braunfels, Texas, fatally shot 26 people and wounded 20 others during a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. "For the last six weekends, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown has awakened to word of another eruption of shootings in his city. 'I am representative of 13,000 cops...so if I lose my emotional bearing they all take their cues from me.'

"'So it's important that I maintain as much as I can my emotions. But 20-month-olds, and 7-year-olds, 13-year-olds being shot with impunity - there's no regard for innocence' (ABC News, July 6, 2020)." Murders in the US rose by 30% from 2019 to 2020, according to FBI data released on September 27, 2021. This is what happens when people lose heart. From a mother about her very young child who was wounded in the September 2, 2019 Odessa drive-by: "She is alive and that is a prayer bigger than any I've ever had to pray - when others today are not alive. I ask you to continue to pray for our hearts as we experience this." After the shooting May 31, 2019 in Virginia Beach, the husband of one of the women killed said his life had been a living hell. "My kids go to bed every night crying for their mom. Every night."

A man who lost a friend in the Las Vegas shooting (above): "Appreciate life and cherish those you have around you. You never know what's going to happen." The problem is, these shooters lose heart, then a sense of optimism, and came to a point where they don't care about anything. If they could have read some of the program, they might have got some positive sense into their brains, before it was too late. John Tecklenburg, mayor of Charleston, S.C., on June 4, 2022: "It’s a sickness our country has to address and remedy, or it will tear the whole fabric of the country over time." A 14-year-old boy, who lost five friends in Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas: "You can't just sit down and cry about it." Kathryn Boit, President of Harvard Student Mental Health Liaisons, said that due to the pandemic, she has had "college friends, acquaintances and strangers reach out to me for resources and advice. I don't know the answers anymore." 

"Since 24 February, nearly 12.8 million people are estimated to have been displaced in Ukraine, most of whom have not left the country. According to the most recent estimates, 7.7 million people are internally displaced as a result of the conflict, which is equivalent to 17.5 percent of the entire population. These are people who have had to leave their homes and everything behind in a desperate attempt to escape death and destruction. They are traumatized and need urgent protection, including psychosocial support. This conflict has been causing extreme human suffering, with thousands of civilians killed and injured, and countless others living through daily bombardment and violence. Homes, schools, hospitals, care institutions and entire cities have been destroyed. The humanitarian situation is dire. Internally displaced people, the majority of whom are women and children, have lost everything they had – their homes and belongings, their livelihoods, their support networks, and in many cases their loved ones (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, May 5, 2022)." Even the Chinese ambassador, Zhang Jun on April 5, 2022, said on "X": "We support all measures that help ease the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine - attacks against civilians are unacceptable."

A fair question to ask is - how can a cross help people recover some heart? The sign of the cross goes back to early Christianity. If it was important then, it is important now. The message of the cross means to: a) trust that things will get better no matter how bad they seem, b) expect the best possible outcome from any given situation, and c) a belief that good will triumph over evil. Sad to say, there are some involved with organized religion who could care less about a cross - as it is believed to hinder evil, "may the dragon never be my overlord". A cross isn’t an ornament: it’s something much stranger - a disrupter of every fakery and an answer that makes a mockery out of every foolish question. As is written: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." A goal is for people's well-being, so they can believe in themselves again. A small percentage may be allocated to fundraising, travel expense, program development - americancross.org, public awareness of cause.

“People are emotionally exhausted. We are seeing a cascade of collective traumas (Roxane Cohen Silver, of the University of California at Irvine)." Beverly Kingston, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado, asked: “How do we heal collective trauma?" After the South Texas school shooting, a government official captured a range of emotions: grief, sadness, sympathy - but offered "barely a shred of optimism for action". Our cause is not meant to be a cure-all. Nevertheless, it may give the traumatized something they can hang onto, to come out of misery. It is so easy to criticize from the sidelines, when you risk nothing. There are thousands of persons in these, or similar, situations - whose dreams have been shattered by a natural or man-made albatross - a dead weight or burden that one must carry. The point is: people can make small changes in the way they live, and ultimately create a big change in their lives. The future depends on choices - remember they deserve a decent life. 

I'm a whisper lost upon the wind 

I'm the tree that falls and makes no sound

I'm a product of my anger 

I'm the bullet in a loaded gun

If I stand up, I break my bones

Everybody loves to see a fall unfold

There's nobody praying for me

                    "Nobody Praying for Me" - Seether

AmericanCrossGlobal.org is a 501(c)(3) EIN 83-1984508.