“The world is full of magic things. Waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
“Evil is whatever distracts.”
This week I held a rifle for the first time. As expected, it was heavy. I did not buy it.
I had decided to go into a gun store- not to buy anything but just to step over a political, cultural divide and take a peek at the “other side” in an unfamiliar setting. It wasn’t scary. The men in the shop were friendly and no one shooed me away. The proprietor was talking about breaching weapons used to bash heads and kill evil guys; he had served in Iraq. His t-shirt praised guns and God.
My t-shirts don’t combine praise of instruments of death with praise for the immense sacred Mysteries of which I am a miniscule part. They say things like “earth-loving dirt worshipper” (with an image of a tree) and “respect your elders” (more trees) and “extinction means forever” (with an image of a whale.) In other words, death is acknowledged and present in my theology but causing death is not my thing, unless we’re talking about ticks or mosquitos. I’ve never had to carry a gun.
A friend of mine used to send her teenage son out to shoot deer because they didn’t have enough money to buy food. A family friend who was married to a Quaker had a huge gun and knife collection. Then there are the folks I know serving in the military and friends who learned how to shoot when they were young because that was just a regular part of life. There are many kinds of experiences and perspectives in this world.
Still, I grieve that so much human ingenuity has gone into creating instruments of death. I grieve the unnecessary loss of life that humans inflict upon each other and other creatures and ecosystems with our guns, big and small, weaponized in war and in intimate relationships. It makes me angry and alarmed that anyone can walk into a store in NH and buy just about any kind of gun.
It all makes me want to send out some sort of plea:Spirit of life and creativity that unfolds in every living thing on earth- in all 10 million to 1 trillion species- sharpen our senses, focus our attention on the absolute miracle of life, save us and others from all the guns. Even and especially when we shoot them “in God’s name.”
Yours, still praising the bees and buds and the liquid gold that they create together,
Rev. Lee
To make an appointment with Rev. Lee, click here.
Email: RevLee@northparish.org
Phone: 978-687-7948