Grieving Our Lost Children

"Grieving Our Lost Children"
by Walter Brueggemann

Another brutality,
another school killing,
another grief beyond telling . . .
and loss . . .
in Colorado,
in Wisconsin,
among the Amish
in Virginia
in Sandy Hook
 Where next?

We are reduced to weeping silence,
even as we breed a violent culture,
even as we kill the sons and daughters of our "enemies,"
even as we fail to live and cherish and respect
the forgotten of our common life.

There is no joy among us as we empty our schoolhouses;
there is no health among us as we move in fear and bottomless anxiety;
there is little hope among us as we fall helpless before
the gunshot and the shriek and the blood and the panic: we pray to you only because we do not know what else to do.
So we pray, move powerfully in our body politic,
move us toward peaceableness
that does not want to hurt or to kill,
move us toward justice
that the troubled and the forgotten may know mercy,
move use toward forgiveness that we
may escape the trap of revenge.

Empower us to turn our weapons to acts of mercy,
to turn our missiles to gestures of friendship,
to turn our bombs to policies of reconciliation;
and while we are turning,
hear our sadness,
our loss,
our bitterness.

We dare to pray our needfulness to you because you have been there on that
gray Friday,
and watched your own Son be murdered
for "reasons of state."

Good God, do Easter!
Here and among these families,
here and in all our places of brutality.

Move our Easter grief now . . .
without too much innocence -
to your Sunday joy.
We pray in the one crucified and risen
who is our Lord and Savior.

A Prayer for Children

We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never "counted potatoes,"
who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blankets to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
who spend all their allowances before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried
and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don't get a second chance.
For those we smother…and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

[The poem was written following the Oklahoma City bombing by Ina Hughes, columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel. from A Prayer for Children by Ina Hughs. Wm. Morrow and Company, NY., 1995. Pgs XIV-XV.]

December 14 - Day of Service

To honor and remember Sandy Hook...

Monroe Clergy Association’s
Day of Service
December 14, 2013
10 AM to 1 PM

10 AM

Meetinghouse at Monroe Congregational Church
Ecumenical Advent Worship Service

In memory of those who lost their lives in the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

Join us to light a candle, hear the bells toll, and pray for the continued recovery of those who have been affected.

11 AM – 1 PM

There will be locations around town in which participants may engage in an act of service.

Here at St. Peter’s, we will have a space for children & families to do some arts and crafts for peace
(peace cranes, snowflakes, Ben’s Bells) which they can share with others.

We will also be assembling a “Cocoa for Caring” project to benefit the Monroe Food Pantry.

Advent Practice: Random Acts of Kindness & Peace

He has told you what is good; and what the Lord requires of you:

but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas: a time to prepare joyfully for Christ’s return and his reign. By reflecting on our lives in the light of God’s Word, we recognize the direction in which our present values and habits are leading us, and see that many places in our lives need to be changed. We further recognize that only the action of God can make that change in us. In the words of the Collect for the First Sunday of Advent, it is God who enables us “to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 211).

We recognize that God did not redeem us in a vacuum, apart from human participation. God brought about the Incarnation of the Son through the cooperation of Mary with the life-giving Spirit. Furthermore, Mary’s vocation is not only to bear the God incarnate, but also to be the pattern for us as we become “God-bearers” by means of following her example of cooperation with the divine grace. (from APLM)

This Advent you are invited to live out your vocation as a God-bearer, to help share the light in the midst of darkness.  On December 14, 2012 a terrible tragedy took place in Newtown.  Let's honor the memory of all those who lost their lives and all the families whose lives have been turned upside down by acting with kindness and peace for Advent as we approach Christmas. (Thank you to the Schill family for this wonderful idea of honoring their memory and to continue this wonderful practice of giving such acts of love in the midst of such terrible hate.)

We will begin the day before Thanksgiving. Wednesday, November 27 – The first of 28 days…

On 27 of those days, we remember the victims who died last December and their families.  We honor their memory, we act with love, and we practice our random acts of kindness and peace.

On 1 of those days, we remember the one who chose hate over love, who acted cruelly to the innocent BUT we do not let his act be the last word, for we honor all those helpers (the first responders) and all those who sought to bring healing to the community of Newtown.  We choose to act with love.  Consider writing to someone who has wronged you and forgive them; write to someone in prison or jail; talk civilly with a person at work or play that you always disagree with; write and give thanks to a first responder; in whatever way you choose, by your action, you can help bring more love into this world.

In a world filled with too much tragedy, too much hate, it’s up to us to be the change we want to see in the world (as Gandhi would put it).  If we are to be ready to receive the Christ child once again at Christmas, let us take these days to ready our hearts through loving, peaceful and kind actions toward our neighbors.

Join us and be God-bearers to our world today!

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Friendship, Love, and Mass Shootings

Friendship, Love, and Mass Shootings: Toward a Theological Response for Gun Control
by Lyndon Shakespeare
Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2013

This essay explores the place of assault weapons in a theology concerned to emphasize human well-being and community. Current debates and recent tragedies that have included assault weapons raise questions beyond the usual appeals to political rights and individual freedoms. Drawing on the analysis of community in Aristotle and particularly Aquinas, this work seeks to promote a Christian vision of human action and friendship grounded in the church’s confession of the crucified Christ. The essay concludes with a section on the role of the church in a society that includes the use and advocacy of assault weapons.

A very thoughtful essay, much to chew on.  Not yet available online.

Contact ATR and get a copy!

Promoting Peace amidst Gun Violence

There is too much gun violence in our country.

That shouldn't be debatable but it is for some in our country.

But no matter how you slice it, tens of thousands of lives are cut short every year by guns. There are murders, there are murder-suicides, there are suicides and the accidents too. Its too many.

We need to consider the costs to our society and our lives.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2013/10/gun_violence_epidemiology_garen_wintemute_on_mental_illness_and_background.html

As a father of five, I think about guns and kids:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html

We need to pray and to act in peace:

Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Posted using BlogPress from my mystical iPad!

Mimetic Desire (Rene' Girard)

A pastor was just killed in Louisanna when the murderer thought the pastor was having an affair with his wife.

This fits perfectly with what Abbott Andrew has been talking about using the work of Rene' Girard and it is important stuff!

What is it?

"René Girard has given us a whole new dimension to explore in the subconscious by suggesting that it is primarily mimetic desire that we find there. (See Human See, Human Want) Mimetic desire, the desire of others that has infiltrated us since birth, gets under our skin and deep into our hearts. Hence the importance of the desires we present to small children to absorb. What keeps mimetic desire in our subconscious is our defiant pig-headed conviction that our desires belong to each of us alone and to nobody else. The stronger this sort of conviction, the more likely the desire is entangled in serious rivalry with somebody else; maybe a lot of somebodies. Somehow, we feel threatened at the idea that our desires are intertwined with the desires of everybody else and we push them away, only to have them manipulate us at very deep levels."

Start here:

http://andrewmarrosb.wordpress.com/posts-collected-by-topic/mimetic-desire-and-mimetic-rivalry/

then go here:

http://andrewmarrosb.wordpress.com/posts-collected-by-topic/mimetic-desire-and-mimetic-rivalry/mimetic-desire-and-truth-series/