For a day or so after the mass murder of innocent children and two adults in a school in Texas, I refused to look at the news. I could not process or live with it. This current horror had followed the murder only a few days before of supermarket shoppers, and I wondered if the country had reached a place too low to climb out of.

Finally I steeled myself and read the reports, accepting that I could never be part of overcoming these horrors if I let despair win. To identify with the victims, I had to own them, had to know them as best I could.

Coupled with my dealing with the awful tragedy were other thoughts brought on by reading a thoughtful book by the late Richard Twiss, a native American, One Church Many Tribes.

How does allegiance to a nation compare with allegiance to God?

My generation basked in the afterglow of defeating the Nazi powers and of defending against godless communism. We found it easy to merge religion (majority Christian) and country.

Many of us came to think of America as a sort of “God’s country.” For those Americans able to vote and live in new suburbs, America meant white America. We forgot about our genocide against native Americans or our enslavement of blacks or our racism.

Amazing today that some who call for defending America against immigrants are themselves descendants of immigrants who invaded and stole land from original inhabitants. By condemning immigrants, they are condemning their own ancestors.

So far as I know, I and all my American relatives are descended from those who came to this country from various nations in Europe before the American Revolution. They were part of white people who settled on land originally belonging to native Americans. At least one of my direct ancestors owned slaves.

Of course, two of my ancestors patriotically fought in Europe in two world wars, one suffering for years from post traumatic stress.

As far as I know, all of my ancestors professed the Christian religion, as do I.

In looking back at this history of my family, I admire many of their qualities—for raising children to love God and to be good neighbors in their communities, to give time and money to worthy causes. I find little evidence of any who worshiped wealth.

However, I am called to repent of their and my sins for a sometimes superior attitude. It easily assumed no responsibility for racism and drew a line against which no non-white should cross.

I condemn but, because of beliefs I myself have flirted with, must assume some responsibility for those who, on January 6, 2021, decided to override democratic norms by storming the Capitol in a rebellion against our constitutional processes.

I condemn, but will not hate, those who are so concerned about an America turning less white that they will swallow obvious lies about an election, an election whose proven results do not agree with what they wanted.

I, like other white Americans, have been part of an America who worships guns instead of God. I must bear some responsibility for the unbelievable killing and suffering that takes place with those guns we refuse to control.

Perhaps the killing of innocents and our refusal to regulate the guns used in their killing are a part of our worship of power. We prefer this false worship rather than living out the justice and mercy preached by the Jesus many of us profess to follow.