Thoughts on A Horrible Day

He didn't like seeing two men kissing in Miami, so he shot up a gay nightclub in Orlando full of young LGBTQ+ people, many of color.

That's the boiled down version of why the worst shooting massacre in United States history occurred early Sunday morning at last call at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. At the end of the shooting spree, there were  fifty dead including the shooter, and at least that many or more injured and needing to go to the hospital.

It was a devastating story to encounter first thing in the morning on Facebook. And I have been crying on and off all day.

The Mickee Faust Club, one of those supposed "safe places" for queer people to gather, is in the process of pulling together our cabaret to celebrate Gay Pride month. But instead of doing our tech rehearsal, we joined with others at a local downtown lake to mourn and march and sing. Monday night's run through was also postponed so that we could gather at the state Capitol to rededicate ourselves to living in love without fear.

I have purposely stayed away from a lot of media today. I did hear that supposedly the shooter has a connection to the terrorist organization ISIS, and even though the FBI knew that, he was able to purchase an AR-15, the same weapon used in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Connecticut and the San Bernadino Office Party shooting last Christmas.

This led me to post the following status on Facebook:

A shooting at a Luby's in Texas? Nothing. A shooting at a McDonald's in Southern California? Nothing. A shooting at a high school in Colorado? Nothing. A shooting at a public event with a Congresswoman in Arizona? Nothing. A shooting in a movie theater in Colorado (and Louisiana)? Nothing.A shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut? Nothing. A shooting at a university in Virginia? Nothing. A shooting at the DC Navy Yard? Nothing. A shooting at Fort Hood in Texas? Nothing. A shooting at a military recruitment center in Tennessee? Nothing. A shooting at a Bible Study in South Carolina? Nothing. Regular shootings daily in Chicago? Nothing. A shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando? _________. Do NOT tell me this isn't a public health problem! And do not come here to tell me why you love your guns. Seriously, not today!

Of course, some people want to argue with me that this isn't about the guns; it's about the people. But I'm sorry. If there is one thing I have come to learn in 48 years of living on this planet, it's that the human heart has both the impulse for good and the impulse for evil. It lives in each of us, whether we profess a belief in God or not. If you feed the heart with Love and beauty and seek what is life-affirming, then the goodness will grow. However, if you take a regular bath in hatred and anger and greed, then you are feeding the evil part of yourself at the detriment to the good. Give that person a gun and....

This is why I really didn't want to hear what Florida Republican Senator, and a vocal opponent of the gay community, Marco Rubio had to say, or watch him shake his head in disbelief. I didn't seek out Governor Rick Scott who treats us like pesky flies, or the truly repugnant Republican AG Pam Bondi who actively fought our right to marry, and still cannot understand that blocking marriage equality was UNconstitutional. While I don't pray for the death of any of these folks, I do acknowledge that they are my enemies, just like the shooter in Orlando was my enemy. And their words and actions have helped to foster and grow an intolerance and nonacceptance of us that fuels idiotic bathroom debates, and mass shootings at gay nightclubs.

I do hope that maybe this time this will lead to really introducing a bill in Congress to get this mass shooting public health problem solved. The medicine is within our reach. We just need our elected leadership to stop looking over their shoulder at what the National Rifle Association may or may not do to them. A tall order, but I expect and demand bravery.

Welcome the Stranger

There is a meme that has been going around on Facebook which depicts the story of the Good Samaritan. There are the two characters up the road with their backs turned, and then there is the man who was robbed and beaten and left for dead in the ditch. The person tending to him, the Samaritan is in a turban.

This story is so old and iconic that even those with only the barest exposure to this parable from Luke’s Gospel know that the big general message of this is: love your neighbor. Take care of the person in need. And, just as it says elsewhere in the Bible, those of us who identify as Christian carry an additional burden to pay very close attention to the finer details of this parable. It isn’t just any ol’ person who stopped to help the beaten man; it was a person who was very much an “other” to the lawyer whom Jesus is telling this story. Samaritans were the hated “other people.” The ones who walked away were the pure and clean—the priest and the Levite—who crossed and went to the other side. They removed themselves from this bloodied man. The robbers we only know as robbers: faceless, nameless, and wanton in their attack. And who was the beaten man? We don’t know, but the assumption is that he was a Jew, like the lawyer to whom Jesus is speaking. But he could have been anybody, another type of “other,” perhaps. The Samaritan didn’t care. He only saw the fellow human in need, and he laid down his own concerns and plans to attend to this person. Jesus posed the question, “Which of these three is the neighbor to the beaten man?” and the lawyer, probably looking down at his feet, says, “The one who showed mercy.” And Jesus says, “Go, and do likewise.” Amen!

When the Syrian refugee crisis was hitting the news as a lead story here in these far remote United States, my spouse asked me one morning, with tears in her eyes, if we would be willing to take in some refugees into our very modest home here in the swampy south land. Without hesitation, I said, “Yes.” And then I got tears in my eyes, too. How could I say “no” to one who is running away in fear from their homeland where they are either being gunned down by their government or brutalized by a bullying terrorist group? How could I look at myself and call myself a follower of the Son of God, and not accept someone into our home who is traumatized and afraid and a foreigner?

I contacted the Episcopal Migration Ministries, who told me that accepting refugees into our home would be highly unlikely given the extremely lengthy process. But they kept my information and have been keeping me abreast about how we can be of help, specifically how we could increase the extremely low number of Syrian refugees the Obama administration proposed to accept into our country from 10,000 to 100,000.

That was before the attacks in Paris last Friday and yesterday’s Congressional vote that proposes to make it damn near impossible to accept any more refugees from Syria. Everyone is afraid that someone might be a terrorist, especially if that someone doesn’t look like one of us.

This from a country that has countless politicians who cite their Christian credentials every time they run for office. How do we justify blocking the beaten and broken women, children, and elderly (who are the priorities of our refugee policy) and then call ourselves “Christian?” We had no problem back in the 1980s accepting over 200,000 refugees from Vietnam. We made it easy in Florida to accept boatloads of Cubans. Yet we close our borders to Syrians?

Where is the mercy in this picture?

As I surveyed my feelings of anger and bitter disappointment in my Congress, especially my own Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Graham, I was reminded of a paragon of Christian courage by the same last name: the Rev. Lee Graham. Same surname, but my dear friend, who passed away three years ago this week, I believe would be shaking his head about our reaction to the refugees. Fr. Graham owned up to what it means to live into the Gospel of Love when he faced extreme hatred and hostility during the civil rights struggles in Alabama. He was branded a communist during the Vietnam War because he sided with peace. And he the only Episcopal priest in this city with enough guts to put on his clerical collar and stand with the disenfranchised gay population after the devastating vote against our community in the 2008 election. He was a friend to me during those horrible days after that vote. I remember him shaking his head, and shrugging his shoulders as he told me, “Well, we gotta keep trying.”

At his funeral in 2012, Fr. Lee had apparently left directions that I was to serve as a Eucharistic Minister along with another lay minister friend, and that I was to read a passage he’d selected from First Corinthians. The last line of that passage has felt like his final words to all who seek mercy and justice in the world:

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1Cor.15:58)

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, has exhorted us not to be afraid. Embracing Jesus, truly and completely, requires one to let go of fears and lay down one’s life to help another. Our Congress, and our country, has fallen far short of that goal.

Do Not Be Alarmed

Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray.  Many will come in my name and say, "I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.--Mark 13:5-8

Do not be alarmed. This must take place. The end is still to come.

What words to have in the Gospel reading this past Sunday, less than 48 hours after the terrorist rampage in Paris. What a message to ponder as pundits piece together on the news the string of deadly attacks waged by those who claim to be fighting against Western ideals in the name of Allah, praise be his name.

Are these times the "birth pangs" of something else on our horizon? 

The readings at the end of the church year are always of an apocalyptic nature. The diviners of our lectionary seem to want to remind us that we're approaching the close of the year, and that Advent is coming and will usher in a new round of quiet waiting and anticipation, and a chance to prepare the way for the coming of Christ back into the world in the most normal of ways: a baby born to a woman who would grow up to be the human embodiment of Love in his own violent and turbulent world of First Century Palestine. He would be "God with us," here to teach us to love our enemies, not curse them.

This perfect love of Jesus is tremendously challenging on a good day. It seems close to impossible on days when our news on television, radio, the paper and social media show us again and again that there is death and destruction and hatred all around. It's not much comfort in the morning office readings to have the Book of Revelation, with "the Devil" or 1 Maccabees with the "fight to the death" narrative. When one reads about Judas, called Maccabeeus, who"searched out and pursued those who broke the law; he burned those who troubled his people," it can feel as though you're right back on Facebook again!

What do we do about those who call themselves "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria" or "ISIS"? 

As might be expected, those Syrians who have been fleeing the civil war that is destroying their country, have been caught up in the crossfire of anger, suspicion, outrage, and fear. They are attempting to get away, but have been met at the border of some European nations with hostility. After what happened in Paris, France immediately closed its border and the news media has started alleging that there are ISIS members embedded in the streams of refugees getting out of Syria. This may be true. But it is also true that ISIS has successfully radicalized those who have felt disenfranchised and despised in their own countries because of their ethnicity or religion. While there are still questions about Friday's attack in Paris, the one thing that is clear is that at least one of the attackers was a French national. And there are some ties, it seems, that these terrorists may have had  to Belgium. That's a far cry from Syria. The Syrian refugees are not the enemy. Unfortunately, in the case of those who are becoming radicalized, the enemies may look eerily like us.

What do we do? I wish I had the answer to that. I am not one who likes war or advocates for war or violence to deal with conflict. I believe that ISIS is attempting to get us to act out of our fears and enter into a war (which has apparently already worked with France starting to bomb ISIS points in Syria). For me, I have to remember to keep living my life in Love. I have to pray not only for the victims of violence, but to remember our enemies as well. Gut-wrenching as that can be, I have to ask for God's intervention to soften the hearts of my enemies so it will have the reflexive action of helping to keep me from getting too invested in anger and revenge. I have to trust that God hasn't checked out and is seeing and aware of this turmoil. 

I also have to consider what the factors are that drive people to hate "our western culture." I'm not convinced by our government's narrative that they hate us because of our "freedom." I think they may hate us because of our misuse and abuse of our freedom. When our freedom leads to exploitation of others around the world, so that we reap the benefits of their resources, there's going to be trouble brewing. Does that mean I think the shooting of innocent people at a restaurant or a concert hall is OK? Do I condone the wanton taking of another life, the beheadings, the raping of the Yazidi women and girls? No way! ISIS is a barbaric organization which has seemingly lost all sense of humanity. I just don't want myself or anyone else suckered into diving head first into their pit of Hell and rage.

I don't have an answer for how to contain ISIS or how you can effectively destroy something that isn't a "state" with defined borders or has a conscience. This is an enigma. God help us all.

      

A Nation Weeps, Again

The shooting today in Newtown, Connecticut, has left the nation shocked, stunned, and, in some cases, speechless.  What do the parents of the surviving children in Adam Lanza's rampage at an elementary school say to the parents who have lost a child to a bullet fired from a semi-automatic weapon?  It is all too horrible.  An entire small town in New England is scarred from this.  And the only thing most of us know to do now is to offer up prayers for the parents, children, community and the Lanza family, as they enter into this new version of reality.

But once we have turned our minds to God, and made our petitions for healing for those affected by this tragedy, we must, as a nation, turn the mirror and look at ourselves to that burning question, "Why did this happen?"  

We are country obsessed with our guns, and we have been told by the National Rifle Association that our second amendment grants us the right to have as many guns of whatever fire power we want.  Some places may have waiting periods, but what's that to someone who is plotting to murder his mother and then shoot the children in her class? (BTW,  I don't know if CT has a waiting period for purchasing guns.)  In this case, Adam Lanza didn't have to wait.  The guns, all three semi-automatic weapons, were readily available in his home that he shared with his mother.  And all three were registered to his mom, who then fell victim in her own home to her own gun.  Which begs the question, "Why did a kindergarten teacher own two semi-automatic, multiple-shooter, pistols and a semi-automatic assault rifle?"   These are weapons that are used by the Secret Service and SWAT teams.  Where is the need for this kind of in-the-home weaponry?

We look to our leaders to do something at times like these, but they are often silent, or preferring to label this sort of thing a "random act of a deranged person."  This is a convenient side-step of the burning issue of gun obsession: say that the shooter was mentally ill, and make much noise about how now is not the time for gun control.  Well, pardon me, but I believe now is the time. Actually, the time was at the shooting of Lincoln.  Or perhaps it was the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or Bobby Kennedy, or Martin Luther King, Jr., or the kids at Columbine High School, or the Luby's massacre in Texas, or the Virginia Tech shooting, or at the Gabrielle Giffords event in Tuscon, or the mosque in Milwaukee, or the movie theater in Aurora, or the mall in Portland, Oregon, and the list can go on and on.  

Here in this city, a group called "Leadership Tallahassee", which seems aimed at the up-and-coming and well-connected in our community, does an outing to the Leon County Sheriff's Department.  There, the group gets to go to the shooting range and do target practice.  One friend I knew who participated in this program was delighted with the opportunity and the feeling of firing a gun. It was "exciting".   In Hawaii, there are several shooting galleries on the main streets in Honolulu, catering to Japanese tourists, so that they, too, can experience that thrill of being like an American and taking aim at targets.  Nothing says America like a gun, right.

It's because of all of these things that I somehow doubt anything is really going to change in the wake of this horror show in Newtown, CT.  There is no will to change.  There is no desire to restrict who may own a semi-automatic weapon.  People will continue to point to mental illness as the real culprit, but strangely, it's the same folks who oppose stricter regulation of guns that also don't want to spend money on any health care reform, let alone mental health care.  The statistics that show that other industrial countries with stricter gun laws have less gun violence will be ignored.   And the tired mantra of the NRA ("Guns don't kill people; people kill people") will get trotted out to protect that endangered species, the firearm, from extinction in the United States.

In order for us to get a handle on this kind of mass shooting violence, our political leaders must turn down the campaign contributions from the NRA, and get serious about re-enacting the ban on assault weapons, and no longer allowing ordinary citizens to have access to semi-automatic pistols and rifles.  Nobody needs a gun like that to go hunting for duck and deer.  There needs to be stricter regulations on licenses as to who may have a gun.   And there should be a mechanism to prevent people from stockpiling weapons like what happened in Aurora.

These are the should happens.  What will happen?  I'm afraid it will simply be more tears, more funerals, and more expressions of outrage at a senseless tragedy.  I hope I'm proven wrong. 

An Anglican Commentary on Norway's Tragedy

A Facebook friend posted this commentary by Rev. J. Barney Hawkins IV about last week's slaughter in Norway.  The piece can be found at the Virginia Theological Seminary's website on Anglican Communion Studies.  Hawkins' commentary reminds us of the Gospel passage a few weeks ago about the field where there were seeds sown, but in the middle of the night, someone planted weeds to grow up alongside the wheat.  Hawkins writes:

In times like these, I find helpful a “Litany of Contradictory Things” in which there are verses like: “Wheat and weeds: let them grow together; Arabs and Jews in Palestine: let them grow together; those whose thinking is similar and contrary: let them grow together.” I would add a new verse: Christians and Muslims: let them grow together.

In that parable, the sower of the seeds instructs the slaves to leave the weeds alone.  To yank them from the ground might tear out the roots of the wheat as well.  He says to let them grow together and the reaper will make the distinction of wheat from weed. 

That's the problem with an extremist such as Anders Behring Breivik.  He is convinced of his own rightness and has thus tried to elevate himself to be God, the judge and jury of the world.  His anti-Muslim hatred... a sentiment unfortunately shared by other Christian extremists... so warped him that he opened fire on children.  

Many in Christianity are quick to point out that Breivik's actions are absolutely counter to the teachings of Christ.  Certainly, if Breivik, and the other so-called 'christians' who rail against Islam understood the teachings of Christ, they'd back off their vitriol and beat their automatic weapons into ploughshares.  We can live side-by-side in this world.  What happens when we die is anybody's guess.  That's the great unknown, and will remain unknown to us until we are able to bear the unveiling of that next level of understanding.  For now, we live in the tension of difference.  And that's OK.

Misplaced Joy

Perhaps I'm missing something here.

Sunday night's prime time drama turned from the hunting and killing of "the bad guys" on CSI: Miami to the real-life drama of the military operation that led to Osama bin Laden's death.   Within the hour of learning the news, people began flooding the streets in New York and Washington, DC, to celebrate.  And even college students at Penn State went out to wave flags, and sing Lee Greenwood's űberpatriotic anthem "God Bless the USA". 


I watched this watched this scene this morning and talked it over with my partner.   She said it reminds her of the story from Exodus when the Israelites escape through the Sea of Reeds, and the waters come crashing back down on the Egyptians, the chariots and the chariot drivers.   The tale ends with Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, and all the women taking up tamborines and singing and dancing at the calamity that had befallen their oppressor.   This is a common motif in the Hebrew Scriptures.  I have often noted that in Judges, Jael takes a tent peg to the head of the Canaanite commander Sisera as he slept.  This is followed by a little folk song  by Deborah and Barak to celebrate the event.  It seems Biblical for there to be much dancing and joy at the death of an enemy. 

But is that God's or human kind's rejoicing?  

Again, I have no love for Osama bin Laden or anyone who puts his life to work for the purpose of death and destruction of others.  But I can not understand the flag-waving and the shouts of "U-S-A!!" as if we'd just won the Olympic Gold or something.  That's just weird. 

And there's something of a let down in this.  Osama bin Laden is dead.  There will be no trial.  No chance for his victims to see justice served.  The U.S. took possession of his body and dumped it into the ocean.  Thus far, we haven't even been shown the photographs of his corpse which supposedly show that he was killed by a single shot above the left eye.   Ten years of searching.  Ten years of wondering where he is.  Ten years of his mere existence making our intelligence community sweat.  One bullet above the eye--boom--done.  Kind of like a tent peg to the head.

Perhaps for some this is cause to celebrate.   But I really think I must be missing something here.  Death, even of our enemy, is not a reason for me to stand up and cheer.   Thankful for the end of a threatening presence, but flag-waving?  No.

Some friends have noted on Facebook that Osama died on May 1st... the same day that Hitler was found dead in the bunker.  It's an eerie coincidence, and leaves me with much the same feeling.  Without a chance to bring the accused before the victims, it feels as though, in death, the Osamas and the Hitlers are able to retain some psychological power.  One 9/11 family member remarked, "His death doesn't bring back my loved one."  That's your reality.

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I don't think this death has made the world a better place.

"On Nights Like This One..."

The networks have never had such a big story to interrupt all the ridiculous CSI shows on a Sunday night. 

Osama bin Laden, the notorious and nefarious leader of Al-Qaeda, has been killed by U.S. Military forces who launched an offensive on a hiding place in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  President Barack Obama, in making the announcement on national television, told us that no Americans were killed in the firefight, and that there was an effort to minimize civilian deaths in the attack.   bin Laden's body is in U.S. custody.  No word on what has become of the second-in-command of Al-Qaeda.  President Obama put it this way, "On nights like this one we can say that justice has been done."

There are those who ran out into the streets outside the White House and Ground Zero in New York to chant "U-S-A" and wave American flags.  But I was particularly moved by a quick interview with a family member of one of the thousands killed on September 11th in the World Trade Center.  You could hear in the woman's voice that she was shocked.  And I think that's a place many of us went to upon hearing the news of bin Laden's murder.  Here is the man who has kept this country on pins and needles for more than ten years, taking responsibility for bloody and deadly attacks in Somalia as well as the U.S. on September 11th.  We've been promised that "We're gonna git 'im!"  and yet nothing.   Now, we've finally closed in on him and killed him?  Wow!

And it raises an interesting thought for me: will his death really bring closure for the families, and by extension, this country which was so deeply wounded by the 9/11 attacks?   I imagine it will be a mixed-bag.  There will be those who join in the chants of "U-S-A!!" but I'm not comfortable going there.  I'm not UNhappy about the demise of Osama bin Laden, and yet I find it hard to rejoice in the death of an individual.  I wasn't giddy on the day that they hanged Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and I don't find myself particularly joyous tonight.  I don't think the world is safer because I don't think Al-Qaeda stops it's plans to take us down.  In fact it may be a time of heightened security.  One can only hope that by cutting off the head of this organization, the rest of this particular body will collapse.