Pride in Country?

This week I struggle with pride for my country. How can I be, when we disgrace ourselves by making it so easy to obtain serious weapons, then bludgeon the one who used them to slaughter so many innocents? Are we so naive as to think that one person is solely responsible? We should be ashamed to be so prideful, in the negative sense, that we feel entitled to the very things that bring such destruction. How can we not see the repetitive pattern of our behavior and the subsequent results at a global and national level?

We need to put aside our bloated pride.
We need to hold responsible those who make it so easy to cause such horror.
We need to make a stand not for what we desire, but for what is most beneficial to the whole.

I am humbly proud to stand with my countrymates who cry for what is pure and good. Their cries go unheard.
I will even be proud to stand by those with whom I disagree, for it is free-thought that makes this country great. However, free-thought does not equal free-action.

It is a true human who can act with what is most beneficial to the nation, to the world.

May we have the grace to do what is needed. May we have the strength to endure the battle. May we never stop speaking for what needs to be heard.