It’s been done. Another human life has been forcefully ended at the hands of his brothers and sisters.

In a so-called civilized, so-called Christian nation.

And the beat goes on. Tonight Derrick Mason is scheduled to die by lethal injection in Alabama.

At the beginning of this year, there were 3,251 people on death row in the United States.

Are we safer because these people have died or are condemned to die? Or is this “culture of death” we’re perpetuating simply inspiring the worst in too many people? My guess is that for many who already feel no hope and no love in this unkind nation of ours, their own lives and the lives of others hold no appreciable value.

I have nothing more to say right now. I’ll quote Gandhi instead:

“I feel in the innermost recesses of my heart . . . that the world is sick unto death of blood-spilling.”

“The policy of retaliation has never succeeded.”

“Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.”

And Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man’s ever-recurring song of retaliation.”

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”