Photo by Daniel Zimmermann

By Casey Iwanaga

What power do we have?
Are we the captains of our fate?
Or are we at the mercy of a God?
This Nation has a new sound; a new beat we march to
not the forgotten glorious proud beat but
the cries of agony, the tears of hurt and the loss of people mean nothing
The next 24 hours is all the time allotted for the hurt to be known
This hurt is pushed away, swept into the dark corner, swallowed by the unimportant happenings
What happens next?
We move on, with the same drive this Nation has always had
Not looking back, covering up the scars with entertainment and plastering on fake smiles
We blame each other, point the fingers, and ignore the problem
We blame a God, when something goes amiss
We blame the past, for problems that have arisen
We blame anything but ourselves
Is it because of pride? Or does it say more about this Nation?
We are able to do all this blame in 23 hours
The last hour is spent talking about the future
The hurt is forgotten after 24 hours, to be written down in the history books for our future generations to see
What happens next?
We’s becomes me’s
And we wait in the same place for the hurt to strike
Then me’s becomes we’s
And we repeat

Casey Iwanaga is a junior at the University of California in Merced. Her father is a retired pastor currently serving as Chairman of the OMS Holiness Churches.