I had a conversation last evening with someone about the
latest school shooting…I’d had a conversation earlier in the day with someone
too. In both conversations and in a
comment I’d made on a friend’s Facebook page, I found myself sighing and
thinking “Help, Lord, my unbelief.” My unbelief that things will change…my
unbelief that things haven’t changed yet…my unbelief that a nation can sleep
when this is happening…my unbelief…that has nothing to do with God and
everything to do with human beings, human nature, and the inability to make a
decision.
The unbelief—it has its foundations in an all too intimate
awareness of the complexity of this issue.
The unbelief has roots in watching laws get rolled back and pockets get
lined thanks to the choke-hold power of the gun lobby. It comes because congress seems to think, or perhaps even claim
to know, that US citizens would rather give up the safety of their most
vulnerable populations than give up the right to legally own, load-up, and
wield, weapons of war. The unbelief comes because though there have been an obscene
number of opportunities, congress cannot collectively decide that it would be
better to try reducing the possibilities of violence though peaceful means rather
than have a little extra jingle in their pockets.
I might have a hard time believing that Congress will actually
enact laws to help ease this collective infection, but as a woman of faith, I
shall summon up every reserve I have and I will speak out with ink and voice until we make a better decision for the sake of humanity.
I thought about that again this morning while sitting in one
of my favorite thought-spots at the farmers market.
7:10 AM Hammered
dulcimer music floats over the round-edged comfort of early morning
conversation between passers-by and vendors selling both winter vegetables and
the promise of spring. The coffee is hot and strong, the book newly begun, and
the pen has ink. Amen.
And then a little while later:
…It is time to let someone
else feel the blessing of February morning-water sun spread across their
back. It’s a beautiful thing, that
feeling…not dissimilar to listening to Evensong
the other night. It is a feeling I find
myself “yearning-into”—something more than leaning. The tender, permeating, wide-love
warmth that makes even the vulnerability of allowing my spirit to stretch and
relax in public a blessing.
And then I thought… this feeling, this is my wish for humanity. Feel the weight of this. Not the weight of weapons. Not the weight of no better option. Not the weight of hate, racism,
injustice. Not the weight of purchased influence. Let us decide together bear the
weight of Love and all that it asks of us.
Giving in to that takes more courage than anything else I know.
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