I wrote this on September 11. I lay in bed that morning, remembering that other fateful morning all those years ago. A friend woke me with the terrible news. I was staying at another friend’s house in Palo Alto, so far away from that place that had become home over the years I lived there. Remembering that everything in me urged me to return to my city, victim of this sacrilege. My heart was there, but I let good sense persuade me that there were too many people there as it was — and, of course, planes weren’t flying. Instead, I gathered with local folk to mourn. There, we sought comfort from one another for the uncountable enormity of lives lost and Innocence shattered. One with the whole world, we joined hands and hearts in community. There were no political divides. For years after that, when things happened, we came together. Citizens of one country raised flags of other countries when tragedies struck. That event and the ones that followed brought us closer to World Peace than we had been in decades. We did not sorrow alone. We were supported and comforted. We believed it might last.
But it did not. We became complacent. Now we live in very different times. This year on September 10 the news came of a political assassination in Utah. Despicable. Not long before, June 14 had brought two political assassinations in Minnesota, leaving two others who survived attempts to assassinate them. Despicable. No excuse for any of this. People have said that Kirk was known for his statement that freedom of the Second Amendment means that there will be a few unfortunate accidents. However, assassination wasn’t therefore his due… A dear friend of mine, who ran the sexual assault clinic in a big California Hospital used to say in court as a witness for the assaulted: Nothing is a rapable offense. In the same way, nothing is a “killable” offense. We don’t know what the story is here. We do know that shootings are despicable cowardice, perpetrated by people with no idea how to contribute, how to work for change. All subtraction, no addition. Peace? It’s an additive process. Hate and War merely want to subtract and destroy.
That’s simply the news making the headlines. There have been many more shootings since then. “Below the fold” as they used to say in the world of newspapers, down there where we don’t turn the paper over to see them mentioned, there are school shootings and church shootings reported on the regular. I started to go down the rabbit hole of who kills and why, but I am a thealogian not a bean counter or a social psychiatrist. I also know that quoting from one side or another is not going to move this conversation forward. We are the only ones who can change the tenor of our country’s interactions.
I hold this tenet to be true: Killing is wrong. This has to be a fundamental human agreement. It is a privilege to be alive. We can be in deep disagreement, but I have no right to injure or unalive you; You have no right to injure or unalive me. One of the reasons I appreciate working in the Trauma Bay is to be part of the efforts of the staff to find the best possible outcomes for people who come through our door. I’m human, I certainly can become tired of people’s lack of respect for life and limb. People’s careless disregard for their own or other people’s safety can be hard to watch. But I’m there to serve.
While working in the hospital, I watch our security folk tone down argument after argument. If someone is having mental problems, they are soothing and supporting while keeping those of us working there safe from violence. People come to ERs for so many reasons — but they always come because something is broken.
I watch as our Trauma Teams work with incredible dedication to limit the damage trauma causes. It can be excruciating work. They do that work without regard to how people arrived on our gurneys. The doctors are human, they certainly have opinions, nonetheless, they work together to bring that patient to the highest level of health they can and then set up a place and a protocol for them to heal.
Our work as Peacemakers is to reach across the divides that separate us from our best selves and from other human beings. It’s not easy. It’s ridiculously optimistic, but then the work of thea- and theologians I admire skews toward Hope for great possibilities. Together, I believe we can do this.
And its damned sure time we did. If we’re unwilling to work on building community, we’re throwing in the towel. Life is too astonishing and too precious for us to disregard the Possibilities and the Hope.
As part of our mourning all this horrific violence, let us think seriously how we can make Peace in the presence of hate. Violence may not be allowed to beget more violence. Rather it must cause us to seek new ways of responding to those and that with which we disagree. Nonviolent resistance is a path towards Peace. Sensible gun laws are another. Caring for our neighbors, still another. There are many ways we can make Peace in the face of hate. The Peacepath is a joyful journey affirming the sanctity of all Life — Life where opposing views and ideologies coexist.
I believe that we are the people to make Peace in the face of hate. Will you believe with me and make this happen?
Salaam, Shalom, Peace, and Blessed Be!