No Good Words

I watched with horror this week as the story of the killings in Orlando unfolded.  I watched the responses of people on the news and in social media to the victims and would characterize almost all of what I saw as deep sorrow and immense love.  I also watched what people were saying about the shooter and saw a much broader range of responses.  I saw people trying to make the event about politics, religion and sexuality.  After watching everyone else, I felt compelled to write about what I thought, and I found no good words.  The whole thing is so senseless to me, and my nature is to try to make sense of things.  The two words I kept coming back to for the killer were evil and sickness, and I am not sure that those two words are completely different.  In general, I think of evil as a choice and sickness as uncontrollable.  To me, evil does not exist by itself, but is merely the absence of goodness.  Did the shooter have a mental illness that could have been treated that made him evil or was he pure evil?  I guess we may never know.   And none of this helps the fact that 49 people have been brutally taken from their family and friends.  I am not currently aware of any personal connections that I have to the victims, but my heart breaks for those that do.