A Balm in Gilead...Lay Your [Automatic] Weapons Down:The Weapons War Revisited Locally and Globally at Aurora,Colorado

To the horror of many, on July 20, 2012, a mass shooting occurred inside a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, United States, during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises. 24-year-old James Eagan Holmes set off tear gas grenades and shot into the audience with multiple firearms.

Calling on the faithful, the prayerful people of God to pray and for God to send a powerful healing balm to that community.

The Balm in Gilead, that Biblical medicinal  healing balm, derived from a plant which has reached mythical porportions in culture and religion, made reference to in scripture, literary books, articles, poems and song is once again implored to present itself as a remedy, if not spiritual panacea for the troubled spirit of these times. This spirit which some have labeled evil, has embodied and manifested itself once again in the physical frame of a young low key, quiet, shy suburban man. This profile  has come in recent years to epitomize an unimaginable weapons war, the likes of which we have never before experienced in outlying quiet rural areas and suburbs.

 The serene locales of our society which have always until Columbine,Virginia Tech and now Aurora have been havens of safety, if not in actuality at least in our minds.  Real mad men are the soldiers who as if out of nowhere appear upon occassion, citing the lines or making reference to a new movie or song release, as monsters firing machine guns propelling bullets snuffing out the lives of unsuspecting grown folks and their innocent children.

 The “balm in Gilead” is a reference from the Old Testament, but the lyrics of this spiritual refer to the New Testament concept of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The Balm of Gilead is interpreted as a spiritual medicine that is able to heal Israel (and sinners in general). In the Old Testament, the balm of Gilead is taken most directly from Jeremiah chapter 8:22: "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Jeremiah 8:22


The obvious understanding for both; "my people" and "the daughter of my people" in Jeremiah 8:22 refers to the Jewish people living in the land of Israel. Rabbinic commentators like Rashi interpreted the balm as a metaphor for teachers, as if to say

 "Did they not have any righteous men from whom to learn so that they should improve their ways?"

Some Christians interpret this same passage as a prophetic allusion to Jesus. This symbol recurs in some Christian hymns and popular song lyrics. In the refrain to the gospel song "Healing" (1999), Richard Smallwood and his choir ensemble sing the assertion "There is a balm in Gilead".

We call on god, our great and nagnificent healer to comfort and heal now i  the mighty and matchless name of Jesus. Let there be a Balm in Gilead to bring healing and comfort to the victims of this atrocity and their grieving families. Keep them all lifted in prayer. Continue to pray for victims of gun violence everywhere as well as the proponents of harmful weapons and other killing machines that could only based on obvious design and construction be purposed for mass murder. 

Pray for forgiveness and that god will intervene and help us improve our ways.