I was in the fourth grade the first time I understood that there were bad people in this world. I was lucky, in a sense. I had grown up in a small town with a close family. I had known more love in my short life than some probably know in a lifetime. I grew up in a community made me feel safe, loved and supported. My school, my family, my church, and my neighborhood, all had a way of making me feel like I was living in a bubble of sorts, protected from any knowledge that the world around me might not be as idealistic as the little corner of the world I was living in. The first time I understood evil and terror was days after my 9th birthday when my mom came to my school in the waves of terrified parents, as my teacher was crying on a phone line trying to connect to her husband in New York. I wouldn’t know, watching the video footage at home with my family that this was the devastating beginning of and understanding of the pain, violence and evil that would occur in my country and around the world for the next 15 years of my life.

Two years later, when the group The Black Eyed Peas release the song and music video “Where Is The Love?” I remember singing along to the lyrics and the catchy melody and enjoying the video on MTV, not realizing the powerful words speaking to the pain and suffering the world, and particularly this nation, was experiencing. I didn’t ask myself at the young age where the love was. I still felt it all around me, in my own small experience. It would years still before I would see how relevant this outcry was and would continue to be.

13 years later I am asking. With a broken heart and the thoughts of the pain I see in communities all over the world. Violence and death seem to be at every single turn. I can’t remember the last time I have watched the news or scrolled through a social media site without seeing something that made my heart ache. People outraged, irate, and raging at each other for justice for the lives of the people they identify with most. All I can feel, all I can think about, is being nine years old. I think of realizing, that while I went to sleep feeling safe and loved that night, there were so many that didn’t. That wouldn’t. I have cried for the lives lost. Both the lives of civilians and of those called to protect them. Now I ask and will continue to ask, “Where is the love”? Where is the love I had been shown as a child? Where is the love I have been taught to give to all people, especially those I consider my enemies, by my parents, my family, my community, my teachers, and by my church and my Jesus. I truly cannot account for every person and every belief system in this world, but I thought we could all agree that “Love your neighbor” is universal and maybe if not that, then I know most of us have been taught some version of the golden rule. “Treat others as you would want to be treated.” My views, my heart, my hope for the world will always be governed by love first. Love for all people, even those who try to hurt me, even those who hurt the world I love with their words and actions, I choose to respond with love. Maybe if more of us decide to respond to violence and hate with love, we will stop having to ask “Where is the love?” Because we will respond with “Right here.”