This is not a call to arms. This is a call to hands.

In the wake of forthright rages and remorse following the Stanford Sexual Assault Case, the world wept as 22 years of time and dedication were taken in mere seconds. They wept for the pure togetherness that music had allowed them, and a bullet threatened to deny them. The tragedies of the following morning would strike with barely enough time to sort and gather spirits from the previous grief. The tragedies once more, forcing eyes to observe the art of condensation: watch, how something as minuscule as a bullet, can take something as monumental as future tenses. Anyone is a god with a gun in their hands.

In this time, how dare we think ourselves entitled to old age, much less, tomorrow's plans? Star and writer of the Broadway musical Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda summed up this notion in his touching sonnet-style acceptance speech during the Tony Awards, which occurred the same evening as the morning of the Pulse tragedy:

"When senseless acts of tragedy remind us

That nothing here is promised, not one day.

This show is proof that history remembers

We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger;

We rise and fall and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longer

And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside..."

Our knee-jerk reactions may be hate, resentment, and wrath. But this is not a call to arms. This is a call to hands. We may feel these things, but we cannot let them be our motivating actions. No matter the pain or the weight in your chest or the burn of the bile rising in your throat, this fire cannot be put out with fire. Hope and love last longer. Violence is a temporary fix for someone else- a momentary catharsis that solves nothing but merely moves the anger, the grief, and the hurt along to the next vessel. This cannot be a cycle we continue. When we turn to violence as the answer to any problem, it's merely a game of hot potato; push the blame and the ache back and forth until it finally explodes.

Some may blame this on a god. But I believe that this stopped being about god -any god- the moment it came to be about killing man. When it became about killing man, it became solely about man. Religion shouldn't divide, but these events often incite those who would use it as a mask, a mask they call an excuse, a reason, a justification, for their own hate crimes. And that cannot be the action we take. This is not a call to arms. This is a call hands. Let first and foremost, your beliefs be of love, and your words, and your ways.

Two days before her death, singer Christina Grimmie posted on her Facebook page the quote, "Hope is the only thing stronger than fear." Our responses, now especially and in anticipation of the election which will determine the new leader of our nation, must be motivated by the former, not the latter.

They were meant to be more than headlines. They were more than headlines. They were mothers and sons and daughters and husbands and lovers. They were business owners and students and the ride attendant on your vacation, singers and the person you'll always scrounge up a tip for because they remember your order and your name by heart but most of all, they were plain and simply human. Our differences seem trivial when we watch our sidewalks stain and run with the same color.

At the end of the day, this is not a war fought with weaponry. This a war made of prejudice and stereotype, judgement and abhorrence. At the end of the day, our first line of defense must be with love.

But this still, is not a call to arms. This is a call to hands. We're stronger as a link than we are as single posts, stronger united than we are divided.

If we have hate in our hearts, the only difference between us and a gunman is the gun. If what we choose to spread instead of light is darkness, we all lose illumination. When places of peace and togetherness are attacked, do not make them anything other than. Do not make them places of fear. Make them still, places of peace and togetherness. When a specific group of people are targeted, it is reason more than ever to not view that group as different, or as an anomaly, or a problem that isn't yours, or as you vs. them, but rather, as us, in support, in remembrance, in solidarity and togetherness. Fight with what they fought for: love.

This is not overcome with hate, nor vengeance, nor scorn, nor fear, but with love. We are stronger with our hands clasped together than we are with them isolated, balled, and pumped into a fist. This way, and only this way, will peace ever be possible. Love wins. And love still wins. And love will win.