How Long?

Racism.
Guns.
Hate.
Fear.
No matter how you add it up, it amounts to the same thing.
People are dying.
How bad does it have to get before we admit we have a problem?
What is going to be our rock bottom?
A bunch of church people at a bible study.
A young man with a twisted heart.
And a dangerous weapon.
Exercising his "right" to bear arms.
He would have been dangerous enough without the gun.
We have built too much on a terrible foundation:
Racism, guns, hate, fear.
Why are we so angry?
What do we have to fear from a bunch of folks at a bible study?
They die, and their God does not protect them.
They are broken on the altar that we have built to violence and hatred.
They are given the gift that no one really wants:
A death like Jesus' death.
But I don't weep for them,
Because they believed,
As I do,
That they will have a life like his.
I weep for the broken world.
Where this sort of thing keeps happening
And we act like we have no idea what caused it.
But we know.
We know.
And we just aren't willing to do much about it.
Until that angry man walks into our church.
I've got news for you America, he just did.
Actually he's been here for a while,
Maybe as long as we have.
But we don't stop him.
Because he has rights,
And who are we to judge.
We're not racist.
We're just observers,
And realists,
and we know the problem is surely not with us,
Surely not us, O Lord.
Let's hold on to our hate and our fear,
Someday maybe they'll stop eating us alive.
Maybe,
Someday,
How long to sing this song?