Requiem Aeternum

Chris Roberts was a biker... a hot shot motorcycle rider... something that is not all that common in New Orleans, but something that he loved. He was murdered on Father's Day when he refused to let someone take his bike. You can read about him here. His murderer shot him in the evening, on Father's Day, and left another New Orleans baby without a parent. There are no official suspects or witnesses.

The folks at Confederate Cycle, where Chris worked, have created a video of his run out at the Bonneville Salt Flats a while back and when I discovered it this morning I just had to pass it on. There's nothing in it but pictures of someone doing what they most loved to do... but that's what living is really about and that's what we're missing with each person who is taken from us, whether in New Orleans, or Oakland, or Baghdad.

The video of Chris is here, and it's worth the time to watch and listen, and maybe even pray.

In the same paper this morning there was a story about someone else - this person, known only to those close to him because the police aren't releasing information - shot further uptown in a neighborhood not far from my house (in fact it's a neighborhood I went walking through the morning I was last in NOLA) and an accompanying story about the case against the murderer of Dinerral Shavers, the Hot 8 Brass Band drummer, being dropped because the witness wouldn't testify.

I didn't know any of these folks personally, but I miss them all. Their deaths have made my life poorer because of their absence in the world. I don't know how we stop this, but I keep thinking a lot about Gandhi's remark that you must become the change you want to see in the world.

I just keep wondering... Can I possibly change enough?