Rene Ford Performance Artist

On February 14, 2018 a gunman attacked students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. There have been many such attacks before and since. All the while our country’s leadership has expressed heartfelt compassion for the victims and their families while doing little to address the cause for these outrageous acts. So here we are on August 27, 2025, seven years later, yet another act of outrage in an environment of anticipation. The country has been nervously watching and wondering not if another attack would happen, but when and where. In the opening weeks of this school year there have been numerous “false alarms” around the country to verify that fact.

“An a little child will lead them” Isaiah 11: 6

On March 24, 2018 high school students that survived the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School organized a nationwide protest. Their effort “March for Our Lives” culminated in an estimated 800,000 young people and adults gathered in our nation’s capital (1.2 million world wide through almost 900 supporting events around the world). Most of the speakers at the protest were too young to vote, drink or join any form of military. One of their youngest was 11-year-old Naomi Walder and one of their most eloquent was 17-year-old Emma Gonzalez. These two along with David Hogg and many others supported by many adults, acted similarly to the disciples who followed Christ and began a movement that cannot be ignored. 

Washington – Judiciary Square March 23, 2018

The image of me on my “About” page, taken by my daughter on March 23 2018,  was the day before the protest. She was 23 – born into this world between 1975 and 2000 and very concerned about bringing children into a world like this. A world that seems to view our children as collateral damage: a by product of material greed. A world that doesn’t see humans—only consumers of manmade resources. Yet, sometime this October, my daughter will give birth to her first child and she wonders if she, her husband and their circle are doing enough to provide their children with a world that values human life.

I’m excited that she has found a young man who looks forward to the challenges that lay ahead. From time-to-time my daughter asks me questions about God’s wrath ( e.g. the fires that ravaged California, the floods in Kerrville, etc.) . I wish there were easy explanations, but for me, as an artist, I remind her (and myself) that God gave each of us gifts. Gifts that are not for our personal enjoyment but to share His glory, to express our being in ways that are beyond words and, as an artist, to challenge ourselves to raise our gifts above entertainment, competition and consumption. 

Let’s Find the Music Together

We come into the world to be influenced by it. We leave this world having influenced it. I try to remind her and my 40-something son through my art that time is the ultimate and everlasting. You can’t outrun it. You can’t stop it. You can’t save it. And you can’t go back. But when it’s your time you can miss it or participate in it with whatever gifts you’ve been given, and this is their time—now.