In August I had the extraordinary privilege of attending a “Gun Violence Prevention Ministry training offered by the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship at the exceptionally beautiful Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu NM. It was the first gathering of its kind bringing together 75 ministers and religious leaders. The mostly Presbyterian pastors and peaceniks were joined by a smattering of Quakers, Lutherans, Catholics, Episcopalians and me. Unlike me, the vast majority had already organized a variety of different kinds of Gun Violence Prevention Ministry events.
I was nervous and eager to learn from their wisdom and skills as community organizers. I expected impassioned pleas, statistics, heartbreaking stories and some worship. I wasn’t incorrect. However, I underestimated the power of ministers and other liberal religious leaders to approach such a monstrous topic with amazing grace, compassion, creativity, decency, inspiring beauty and transforming presence. These women and men engaged in social justice community organizing didn’t just happen to be religious. These were the kind of Christians that like Jesus are heart centered servants dedicated to bringing the transformative power of love to bear in a land and to a people who have been marred by gun violence.
I gave this service the title “Religious Response to Gun Violence” because I wanted us to be blessed with the same kind of spirit I encountered in New Mexico. If you hope to be effective in gun violence prevention ministry, you can’t avoid politics. Legislation WILL be part of the solution or the problem. However, religious people know that there is more to an answer than legislation. If we want to be ambassadors of peace,.. if we want to see the dove of peace descend, we need to heal hearts, minds and souls of people. We must address the root causes of violence. That is what ministry is all about.
Earlier in the service I gave a trigger warning. Today you have heard or may yet hear information, stories that remind you of personal losses, or traumatic events. To be a liberal religious people we must address the reality that countless mothers, fathers, husbands, wives and children live with great mental emotional pain in the wake of gun violence. Even if no one in our immediate family has been killed or ended their own life, the media alerts us to the public health crisis of gun violence. Our children have nightmares and live with anxiety especially if they experience bullying or any number of forms of mistreatment. And we are by and largely a people of privilege and economic advantage. Statistically in the US, the scourge of gun violence falls far more frequently upon BIPOC and upon poor people.
This summer the US Surgeon General issued an advisory declaring “gun violence” a public health crisis. My faith tells me that if people put their minds to it, we will find and we will implement effective ways to drastically reduce gun violence. Success will require change of the industry, laws and culture. It will take sustained educational efforts to change people’s habits, attitudes, assumptions, and understanding about what makes for gun safety.
We are not just concerned with number of deaths. As a religious people we are concerned with all that harms the spirit. We must care for the soul of our nation, and for the suffering of humanity. As individuals and in groups, there will be many ways that we will respond to bring our UU values to life.
So here we are again. We are here to grieve because healing requires mourning. We are also here to create hope and cast vision, for people without a vision shall perish. We are here to continue our education as a people with a shared ministry.
Joe Hill said, “don’t mourn, organize.” Today we realize how important mourning is. This church doesn’t say or imply that if you had more faith, you would not be grieving. No, we are people committed to grow in our compassion, and that means developing our capacity to accompany; to hear and receive someone’s suffering, to give witness to someone’s reality. It doesn’t mean dismissing, denying or ignoring someone’s pain. It doesn’t mean to squelch, silence or suppress it. It doesn’t mean telling people to get over it. It doesn’t mean smothering someone in syrup or platitudes or advice. It doesn’t mean shaming or blaming anyone because they are suffering or hurting.
Many of us are habituated to distracting ourselves from our pain. This is one reason there is so much addiction in our society. We think there is always something to buy, something to take, something to do to feel better. And I do thank goodness that we find ways to feel better, and ways to go on. However few of us seem to know how to receive a person’s pain without instantly thinking we must do something about it. And again, I do give thanks for all the many wonderful ways we find to help people. I’m saying that if we think that we must do something to instantly make a person feel better, we are likely to have difficulty being able to connect with them where they are.
Sometimes we get to do things for people. Its useful and we get to be of service. However, if we are desperate to do something to fix a person’s problem, then we bring them our desperation, our despair. If we have no spaciousness, no slack to be able to be present to someone who is suffering, then we’re probably going to have a hard time being around them.
if we have a hard time being around people who are suffering, then we will have a hard time being around ourselves when we are suffering. Let’s examine our attitudes. Do we believe that people should keep their pain to themselves? Or do we receive people’s sharing as a gift and treasure? What do we do with our pain? Are we willing to let anyone see that we are struggling and why?
I believe that much of the healing power that can be generated and found here at UUCHC arises because we decide to be with each other, and to learn as we accompany each other through adversity. We would do well to carry this attitude with us into our religious response to gun violence.
This congregation and UUs in general like to think of solutions to social justice concerns. I love this about us. Really who wants to think about our national crisis of gun violence? Most of us seem content to blame whichever political party we don’t like.
The first religious response I’ve suggested today is to create space to enable the healing that happens when mourning is valued and supported. Similarly our ministry would do well to allow space for fears to be expressed too. Both Democrats nor Republicans have grief and fears about gun violence. No one is happy children getting shot.
UU tradition encourages us to develop a practice of seeing people’s humanity, of being able to hear their fear and pain. I’m not suggesting that we must like people before we work together. The magnitude of the problems we face requires us to do what we can with everyone we can, even if we abhor their espoused views. One slogan in this movement is “take action not sides.”
One of the things that I’m most excited by is the growing visibility of gun owners stepping forward to be part of a team effort for gun violence prevention. This will break the polarization that blocks progress. Most gun owners will get on board with education and advocacy of the need for safe gun storage. Increasing numbers also support reasonable and effective gun safety laws. One prominent politician who had previously receive an “A” rating from the NRA tells how his daughter persuaded him. It was after one of many school shootings. She went to him and said, “Dad you have to do something about this!”
Until recently the gun industry obstructed the gathering and dissemination of information regarding gun violence. Gun Violence Prevention activists have advocated for the right to information. Increasingly research and information gathering is happening. John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has done extensive research on the effectiveness of various approaches in the prevention of gun violence. They have gathered data tremendously useful for gun violence prevention efforts. Here’s an example of statistics* drawn from research:
People in the US are 25x more likely to be shot than residents in other high-income countries. 327 people are shot each day in the US, and 117 die. On avg. 23 minors are shot each day in the US. Guns are now the leading cause of deaths of children and teenagers. US residents are 2x more likely to be killed by a gun than to be left-handed. 60% of gun deaths are suicide and 37% are homicide — including 1% being mass shootings. The US has more guns than people, and more gun dealers than McDonalds and Starbucks together. 76% of guns confiscated in Mexico were purchased in the US, especially in states like Texas and Arizona where its legal and relatively easy to buy them.
Research and data “provides a framework for cities to establish violence reduction councils— interdisciplinary, data-driven public health approach aimed at proactively preventing a cross-section of violence. “ *
Addressing gun violence as a public health issue may succeed in breaking through the barriers created by political polarization. Advocates compare this in many ways to previous successful efforts to break the cycle of tobacco addiction in teens, tobacco deaths, or efforts that have been successful in reducing highway fatalities. Campaigns succeeded in changing laws, industries, and culture. Gun Violence Prevention can be just as effective.
As religious people we can participate in these efforts, and we can keep a broader and deeper perspective. Our UU focus on the creation of the beloved community by overcoming and dismantling oppression is needed to heal root causes of gun violence. So too is our advocacy for dignity and affirming of inherent worth, our promotion of respect and awareness of the interdependent web of existence, our advocacy of a global community with compassion, equity and justice for all. All these efforts will likely fail unless we place love at the center of all we do.
And we can’t wait until this divine order is established on Earth. Being religious liberals means responding now to human suffering caused and causative of the public health crisis of gun violence. It means promoting healing with support of grieving. It means facilitating restorative practices to heal the fractures in communities caused by gun violence. It means listening compassionately to survivors, advocating for their expressed needs, changing our ways based on what we learn from those we seek to assist. We shall employ ceremony, ritual, symbol, worship arts and religious education, the development of spiritual practices to enable us to offer joyful service and respond to gun violence with justice and compassion. We shall do our own inner work to grow in effectiveness as allies. We will find reasons for hope, casting again visions that will nurture souls to help heal society.
*most statistic taken from Bradyunited.org.
* quote from https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/annual-firearm-violence-data
Other useful websites
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s
https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/data-research/facts-stats/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/25/health/surgeon-general-gun-violence-advisory/index.html
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