This episode examines the ongoing plague of mass shootings and growing tragedy of gun violence in America. Michael Meade uses a teaching tale from ancient Africa to show what happens to a culture when people refuse to face up to dangers that can turn any public place into a site of tragedy and unnecessary death. An old idea states that it is the same to live in a tragic time as to be in a tragic place. We live in tragic times, but by now, anyone can find themselves in the midst of gun violence and great tragedy in any place in the United States. Mass shootings have happened in banks and in grade schools, in churches and in movie theaters, in nightclubs and in synagogues, at universities and at concerts, in shopping malls and dance halls and the list goes on and on. It is our mutual fate to be alive in tragic times; yet when we fail to grasp the nature of our fate, we become ruled by it. If we deny or try to escape our fate, we simply contribute to the hardening of it. And right now, America is going through a hardening of minds and hardening of hearts in which some people come to value guns over children and choose continued violence over safety and healing. A culture that begins to deny the tragic presence of death will end up denying the value and meaning of life. Unless we change, our mutual fate will be ever more tragic. Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online workshop “Rites of Passage: Ancient and Contemporary” on Saturday, April 15. Register and learn more at: mosaicvoices.org/events  You can save 30% on this workshop and further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 500 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at: patreon.com/livingmyth.