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Pray.
On
Facebook, yesterday, in response to the shootings at Emanuel AME Zion Church in
Charleston I wrote as a “status update,”
... home cleaning my
oven and packing boxes and dreaming of an exciting future while time has
stopped at Emanuel AME Zion in S. Carolina. Prayers for the victims of this
horrific and intolerable act of violence. Prayers for the families, for the
shaken community, for those who investigate the crime and for the perpetrator
whose illness has turned to evil incarnate. Prayers all the way around. Pray
for peace.
I prayed through the day, offering my small voice to the cacophony of
outrage and shock and sadness being raised to God across the country. I found myself despairing about the violence
and racism in this place that we call home, and wondering about the politics
that tangle up the progress of making our country as safe as it should be.
I read the latest breaking
articles about this tragedy, watched President Obama address the nation and
peered into the eyes of the boy-killer in his mug shot trying to find something
in all of this that would make sense.
For me, prayer in times like
these is about offering our own pain to God… it is about lifting up the pain of
others to the One whom we call the Comforter, our Advocate… and it is about turning to our source of
strength to empower us to enable change.
When I pray to God I do not ask for God’s magic wand to wave over us and
make us better… as much as I pray for an outpouring of grace, courage and
fortitude to pull me to my feet.
There are petitions to sign,
church bells to ring in memory of the 9 who were killed on Wednesday, and
letters to write. One way that I will be
participating in actively praying for change will be to march with my brothers
and sisters on Sunday, June 28 in the streets of Salt Lake City along with the Bishops United Against Gun Violence.
(For more info see http://bishopsagainstgunviolence.org/claim-it-press-release/
)
This peace march was planned long
before Wednesday, and now, we need more than ever to join together in prayer
and to make a public witness to the need for change.
I am also turning to my Bible for renewed study and prayer, hoping to gain
insight through the Word of God. I lay
in bed last night making a mental list of stories to read and study and pray my
way through that might guide me. I’m not
looking for clarity- I believe that in the midst of tragedy like this there is
little clarity and few answers- but there is always insight to be gained. And so I want to visit the stories of God’s
people that speak of our brokenness… and of God’s dream of a restored and new
Creation. I will read, again, the first
story of human violence in our spiritual lexicon: Cain and Abel. I want to sit with the stories of conquest in
Joshua, Kings and Chronicles and read them from the other side. I will read the
parables that sound so “right” from their titles, (The Great Banquet) but end
with weeping and gnashing of teeth and the killing of slaves (Matthew 22). And
then, I will read for Hope. Isaiah
11, Isaiah 61 and Revelation 22. Pictures of a peaceable Kingdom, of The Good
News of Deliverance and a New Jerusalem. These passages carry me through the
darkest of days knowing that God’s dream
is one of wholeness and restoration and peace. It is a dream that I am
willing to put my shoulder to the wheel for… and that, with God’s grace, will
come… in the fullness of time and, maybe even, in small points of light between
now and then.
How are you moving in this time-
finding your way in the world after Wednesday?
Pray. And then pray some more. For peace.
Interesting approach, that--thinking over the Biblical stories that might offer grace and insight. Today I thought about the parable of the king with a vineyard who went away to another country and sent messengers to collect the rent from the unworthy tenants--finally sending the heir, who was also killed (in an attempt to get rid of the king)-- and we are told to wait for the king's expected action. That led me to Jesus' command? suggestion? that we turn the other cheek-- These fit together so strangely that they seem to speak together to our complicated circumstances of violence, hatred, terror and sorrow. I liked the MP reading for 6/22--the account of the very presence of the Ark causing gods to fall over and break, and tumors to rise in the citizens of the Philistine city holding it captive. It seems to me that the holiness of Presence at Mother Emmanuel in the midst of our violent, racist culture could be akin to the Ark--holiness causing eruptions of all that is false. But what of people who do not find church a helpful source for understanding and finding direction? On Thursday, my daughter sent me the link to Jon Stewart's Wednesday night show. His eloquence, his honesty and his own pain was deeply moving.. He said, looking directly into the camera, "And you know--you know nothing is going to change." He is too honest to add a condemnatory challenge. His plain acknowledgement of the truth about our national passivity in the face of evil and terror was inspiring because he was so uninterested in revenge or hatred, and so grateful for the peaceful, courageous witness of his guest that evening, Malala Yousfazai. I'm grateful that so many unchurched have (until August) access to such powerful and trusted voices of truth as Jon Stewart's. I find myself praying for a grace I cannot yet articulate, but I wish I could. I did my chores and gardening over the weekend and found myself thinking of Chamberlain and Clemenceau. Maybe I'm praying that our witness have the grit of MLK's hope and Gandhi's determination. Maybe Jesus' parable about the king's vineyard and the unworthy tenants is left with an open-ended question so we can find our way to witness to justice and love in our own time. Now.
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