The arctic front has made its way east and we’re slowly rebounding from last weekend’s ice storm. I still can’t get much done at the farm, so I’ve been working from home the last few days. I’ve been blessed to have quiet meditation time in the morning, unhurried by the usual morning rituals that precede a workday at the farm.
Given the atrocities happening in Minnesota and the constant cruelty and hate coming from our nation’s capital, I’ve found myself reading the Book of Isaiah this morning. The prophets remind me that religious nationalism, authoritarian regimes, corruption, and abusive power have always plagued societies long before us. History and the prophets tell me we’ve been through this before. They also remind me that there’s a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel – that evil doesn’t prevail. I must hang on to that. Otherwise, hopelessness rears its ugly head.
This morning, I found a gem in Isaiah 33.15 (in The Message Bible) that offers me hope for today.
“The answer’s simple:
Live right,
Speak the truth,
despise exploitation,
refuse bribes,
reject violence,
avoid evil amusements.
I also find hope in the people of Minneapolis who have braved sub-zero weather to “speak the truth, despise exploitation”, and look out for their neighbors in the face of terrible atrocities carried out by ICE and the current administration. They’ve refused bribes (“we’ll leave if you give us your voter rolls” -another ploy to fix the next election). They’ve rejected violence, answering violence with peaceful protest. Unlike the ICE agents who celebrated the lynching of Alex Pretti (watch the video) or the constant laughing at another’s pain, they’ve rejected such evil amusements.
I needed the reminder today that no matter how I feel (does “really pissed off”, hurt and grieving resonate with you?), I can heed Isaiah’s words. There is hope. Jesus even made clearer by reminding me that loving God and loving others takes care of everything else. It enables me to “speak the truth, despise exploitation, refuse bribes, reject violence, avoid evil amusements” too…
Thoughts
From the Porch: We sold out early at the farmer’s market Saturday.
We sold much of the week’s harvest on Wednesday, so we were a bit light for
Saturday’s market. Our normal crowd was a bit smaller due to the rainy morning.
Even a few of our farmers took the day off for other pursuits. Hopefully,
everyone enjoyed a much-needed break from summer chores. I know I did.
Our friends Melvin and Janice called Friday night to invite us up to Lake Murray for a camping weekend. It was a perfect Saturday morning to leave market early and head to Oklahoma. Cell service is almost non-existent there. Spending a couple of days unplugged from everything is a periodic necessity. A couple of days in a quiet campsite with good friends is just what the doctor ordered!
Life is full of small pleasures. My Sunday morning meeting was covered by someone else, so I slept in for a change. Upon awakening I made the coffee and headed for some serious porch time. I made the mistake of checking out my CNN app and discovered twenty-nine people had been killed in two mass shootings just hours apart: one in El Paso and the other in Dayton, Ohio. It was difficult to separate the horror and sadness I experienced from the rising fury toward the hatefulness of the crimes.
I wanted to write
about it but growing older (and hopefully wiser) has allowed me to hit the
pause button on such occasions lest I speak or write out of anger. I tend to
say things I later regret or that are misunderstood. It makes apologies and
amends to others for my emotional outburst extremely difficult. So, I’ve mulled
this over for the last couple of days before sharing my thoughts.
Same
story, different day…
The storyline has become all-to familiar. Another mass
shooting. The news covers all the vigils held to honor the dead. Finding
relatives of the fallen or hospital room interviews with survivors are a
ratings bonanza. There’s an outcry against gun violence. Politicians and
political pundits from both sides of the aisle pontificate on how to prevent
this from happening again, just as they did the last time and the time before
that. What happened Sunday will happen again today, tomorrow, and so it goes.
According to data collected by the non-profit organization,
Gun Violence Archive, (as of August 4th, 2019) a mass shooting is
defined as “an event where at least four people, not including the gunman, were
shot”. By this definition, there have been 292 mass shootings in last 219 days
of this year alone. I’m no math wizard but according to my calculations, that’s
1.3 mass shootings a day.
We simply don’t hear about most of them. It seems only a
large body count is newsworthy. Maybe we’ve become numb to “average” shootings.
Many occur in communities most folks ignore anyway. Sadly, if this weekend’s
events are like previous mass shootings, the media will play with the story for
a few days until another ratings booster comes along…
Words can
kill just like bullets
The FBI is unsure as to the motive of the Dayton shooter, but are treating the El Paso event as an act of domestic terrorism based on white supremacy. The shooter’s motives were clear so he several hundred miles to carry out a planned attack on immigrants because of the “Hispanic invasion of Texas”.
The “Hispanic invasion”. “Those people”. “Go back where you came from”. All words and phrases coming from the highest office in the land. All words that spark hate, division, and most of all, fear. When asked what we can do about the problem with those people, someone shouted, “shoot them” and everyone present laughed. Except for one 21-year-old from North Texas. He took those words literally…
I don’t know what to do about gun control, red flag laws, or mental health issues and gun violence. I don’t know if the present occupant of the White House will change his words, but maybe we should hold him accountable for those words. Words kill. They accounted for at least 22 of the deaths this weekend. Hateful words, attitudes, and divisiveness pulled the trigger as much as the gunman did. Donald Trump is as complicit in the El Paso shooting as the gunman.
What I do know is to counter hateful words and actions with
love and grace, despite my anger and sadness. The grace shown to me by a loving
Abba will guide my actions. I’ll not allow hate and division to interfere with
loving and uniting others, especially “the others”.
What I know for certain is, “The only thing necessary for the
triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”―Edmund Burke(in a letter addressed
to Thomas Mercer).I
won’t be quiet, nor will I sit still.
Thoughts From the Porch: I stepped out on to a dark porch this morning. The Mockingbird sang his morning song, and all was peaceful. Our little cul-de-sac is far removed from the rest of the world on mornings like this. While I enjoy the respite of the porch, I’m not immune to the world around me. I know how blessed I am. Others are not so fortunate.
I watched the news in horror as another hateful display of
violence and white nationalism resulted in the death of 49 people and 20 others
wounded in Christchurch, New Zealand. My heart goes out to our Muslim brothers
and sisters who were doing nothing more than practicing their faith. It seems
to be a story often repeated: Sikhs in Wisconsin, Christians in Charlottesville,
Jewish worshipers in Pittsburgh. It even happened a couple of hours south of me
in a small church in Texas. All mass shootings motivated by hate, racism, and
insanity.
While I’m deeply saddened by what happened in Christchurch, I’m saddened far more by the fact that I feel no shock whatsoever. Mass shootings are no longer exceptions to the norm. According to www.massshootingtracker.org there have been 65 mass shootings as of March 16th in the United States alone.
I was living in Denver, Colorado in April 1999 when the Columbine
shooting occurred. While there had been earlier mass shootings, Columbine hit
home. Maybe it was the scale of the violence or that the news coverage was so
immediate, but I was completely shocked by the event. Moreover, my oldest
friend had friends at Columbine. It was all-to-real.
I’ve lost count of how many mass shootings there have been
since. Maybe that’s why I’m no longer shocked to hear of yet another one. I
despise the fact that I’m no longer surprised. It feels like giving in and
giving up. People die, it causes an uproar in the media for a couple of days,
and everyone goes back to life as if nothing has happened. It’s just the way things
are.
I don’t pretend to know how to fix the problem. I’m not here
to debate gun control or the other policy decisions that might prevent, or at
least mitigate, mass shootings. Prayers and sympathy might help but they aren’t
enough. They’re usually lost in a twenty-four-hour news cycle that dulls the
senses anyway…
gregoryjoel.com 