Homily

A Lament for Charleston

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A Lament for Charleston

By Chuck and Barbara Blaisdell

We are oh so weary….

Of waking in the morning to yet more carnage committed with a gun.

Of a new name – “Charleston” – added to that blood-and-tear soaked geography: Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Ferguson, Cleveland….

Of those who would put the Second Amendment ahead of the First Commandment.

Of racism that stains souls and mocks dreams and kills God´s children.

Of safety regulations more rigorous for playground equipment than the guns that injure or kill thousands of children per year.

Of those who have so successfully corrupted the language that we have let them define the issue as “gun control” (playing to our dislike of “control”) instead of “adult and child safety.”

Of the statement “guns don’t kill, people do” as if that were an actual argument, amid slashing mental health programs and those that teach against the racism, sexism, homophobia that too often lead people to gun people down.

Of legislators too timid and often too-bought to responsibly use the power of their calling to protect us all.

Lord, in your mercy, don´t just hear our prayers, but enrage us, cause us to take action, to do something, to be unwilling to spend another day without having done something that day to attack racism, to lessen the carnage, to take back our language, to confront evil, to say something, to engage in tough love. Lord in your mercy – and in your justice and in your hope….

Copyright 2015, Chuck and Barbara Blaisdell. Used by permission.