Last Sunday in Charleston....

A week ago, Mike and I visited Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston.

After the tragedy in June, the church is without its pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney, one of the nine fatalities.

I almost said "victims," but there were far more victims than nine--the families, children and friends grieving seven months later and far into the future.

As we all saw in television interviews in June, these are people who want to move on and "be a model to the world of forgiveness, resilience, and strength" (as the interim pastor said.)

I wondered: how could they welcome us so warmly, two of several white people there?  How could they sing, braid each other's hair, wear purple and blue hats, go to work every day?  How do people move on after such a tragedy?

They could just as understandably close their doors to outsiders.  They could, with reason,  feel hatred or suspicion for white people--since the perpetrator of that terrible crime was white.  But that's not what they are doing. As one of the elders said, "You are welcome here, whatever church, synagogue, or mosque you come from--or if you have no faith at all."

What a contrast to the divisive rhetoric of "the Donald" who wants to build a wall at the Mexican border and to ban Moslems from the United States!  What a contrast to the never-ending fighting in which political candidates take aim at each other--not with guns but with words and personal attacks.  The members of Mother Emmanuel are humble, kind, working-class people, no towers named after any of them.

As Obama said in his speech last week, we live in a country of "more gun-related crime than any developed country in the world."  We have watched so many news reports of mass shootings, he said, "that it almost seems normal."

Children in classrooms, office-workers, church members, college students, moviegoers--all the victims of mass killings were  people in the middle of living until gunshots shattered everything.  While I agree with Obama's speech about the obvious need for stringent background checks and ending loopholes, it's not enough.

We need a world that loves its kids, all colors, all income-levels, and all religious faiths into which they are born. What I dream for is a world in which shooting would be the last things any child would want to do with his hands.