Can we stop yelling.

Just for a moment.

Please.

This is not doing anybody any good.  It will not bring back lost and broken lives.  It cannot ease the pain and suffering of those left behind.

You are right.  You are wrong.  Yes, it is true.  It is absolutely true.

This much is true, as well.

We are all wrong.

Throw blame everywhere but it will finally stick to where it belongs.

On all of us.

A click and post outrage full of demands and accusations at others is a deflection.

I am responsible for the dead and dying in Florida.

It is true.

I did not pull the trigger, but I have not done enough to stop him, or somebody else, from doing so.

You, those reading this, and those choosing to ignore it, you are culpable as well.

I will be more culpable if, after I write this and post this, I move onto the next thing in my life without committing to do something.

This is how we have all become.  We flit, and we flirt with wanting to do something.

Yet nothing is done.

What happened in Florida will happen again.

It makes me ill to imagine it so.

Imagine it not happening.

But doing nothing but dreaming about it will not stop it.

Dead children in a school are not the nightmares of their parents.

It is the cold, stark, hard reality that warm bodies they said goodbye to in the morning are now cold and lying on a slab lifeless and gone forever.

Stop yelling.

For a moment if you can.

Instead of looking for Congress to do something.  Anything.  What can you do.  What can I do.

What can we do.

Getting rid of all guns in this country isn’t an option.

It isn’t.

Please.  Stop saying it is because it just means you want to argue not solve this conundrum.

Will getting rid of some kinds of guns make a difference?  If so, what kind of guns.  Can you show me with facts that it can?

Because if you can’t you are just imagining it and that won’t fix anything.

Arguing that a document written by long dead old men simply cannot be changed is not the mark of an exceptional nation.

Those who started this country stir in their dust at the notion that any single amendment they permitted to be changed when change was required is exempted from change.

Stop yelling.

You can, if you want to.

I want to.

I am tired of it.  Tired of pointed fingers.  Spitting words.  Hashtag this.  Prayer that.  My cold dead fingers pried off of anything thumping of chests.

I don’t have a solution right now.

I have a promise and an offer.

I want to find a solution.  With those of you who want to find a solution.

I promise that this time I won’t make this promise to do something and then go onto the next something.

I need your help, though.

On March 16^th – 18th I invite you to join me at my cabin, The Northern Lights Lodge, outside of Hayward, Wisconsin. 

Let’s talk.  Let’s reason together.

Perhaps we can start a movement.  Maybe we can save my child.  Your child.  Someone’s child.

Isn’t that incentive enough to try?

Bring a sleeping bag.  A bottle of wine.  Or not.

Most of all, bring an open mind.

Next to a fire.  In a hot tub.  Out on a cold Wisconsin deck let us warm ourselves with a passion for believing it is us – not somebody else – who will bring us in from the frigid discomfort that the solutions to this are out of our hands.

They are not.

They never have been.

We cannot allow ourselves to believe that others can be compelled to action because we shout, tweet, post or write a blog or do a monologue on a comedy show at night.

For two days and two nights we can all – from wherever you come from geographically, ideologically, philosophically politically or otherwise – come up with a plan on how we can do something.

You can email me at erichmische63@gmail.com or you can text me at (651) 600-1188 and see if I am serious.

I am.

Come as a family.  Let us hear the words of your children.  Your grandparents.  Aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins – the whole connectedness of what it means to be an American family.

Come as one.  Come as many.

There will not be too many.  Because there can never be too many who want to change the world.

We may be close but the closer we are the more we can do.

Join me on March 16^th -18^th for “Stop the Yelling:  A Summit at The Northern Lights Lodge”

We, the people – we will fix this and anything else that is broken in America.

Stop yelling.

All of us.

Let’s fix our broken hearts and minds.