Beloved Siblings in Christ,
I write to you sickened by the news of yet another incidence of gun violence. Yet another mass shooting. Yet another massacre of young children — this time at Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
I can still remember getting into a friend’s car at Logan Airport, having flown in from California where I was attending seminary, and being met with the news of the shooting at Newtown Elementary School in Connecticut. The news was unthinkable.
The news from Uvalde is nearly as unthinkable today as it was ten years ago that December when the cry went up, “Never Again!” Never again could we allow this to happen. Never again would a loved one, especially a child, leave home never to return, their life cut short by the hands of someone wielding a gun.
It was unthinkable then and it is unthinkable now, except that today we know all too well the grip of the sin of greed, power, violence, and complacency has over the people of this country.
As the number of deaths caused by gun violence increase, our cries of “Never Again!” are joined with wails of “How long, O Lord?!”. And it can be easy and tempting to allow ourselves to grow weary in the work of dismantling a culture of violence and systems of oppression. And, Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows reminds us, “Humanity has built the systems, we can take it down. We Can Take it Down.” We can and we must. As Christians we have been made a new body, a new people in Christ. “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD”. (Is. 55:8-9) The ways of the world are not God’s ways. We, as a people, are called to follow in God’s way, the way of love.
So let us join with the cries of those who mourn. Let us weep. Let us rest from our weariness. Let us sit silently in prayer, listening for that holy voice within each of us — the angry partisan voice, or the fearful whisper, but the voice of God which we all know, and which knows us. And then let us rise and get to work, inviting the love of Christ to transform us and rebuild Christ’s body so that nothing — “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us” or keep us from loving one another—in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:38-39)
In Faith,
Lauren+
Sabbatical Priest
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Dear friends,
I know that many of us are wondering how this last week (Buffalo, Orange County, Uvalde) will filter down to the youngest among us, and what will be best for them. Here below are some things that I learned from teachers and the consulting psychologist at a preschool / kindergarten affiliated with the Yale Child Study Center. These are especially helpful for talking with very young children (ages 2-7) but can apply to our older elementary students too.
1. Pay attention to your own feelings.
It is hard to attend to a child with serious, scary questions if you are also very upset and haven’t had space to share those feelings.
2. Be guided by the child’s own questions.
Notice what specifically they are asking, how often or when they ask it, and consider what other specific fears might be behind it. (These will all vary greatly by age and understanding.) But answer only what the child asks, without offering more.
3. Use simple language. Be honest, while avoiding details.
Sometimes the simplest language is the hardest for adults to use, because it is the most blunt. If a child asks or keeps asking, “What happened?”, it is reasonable to respond with the facts : “There was a man, and he killed some people. It was in Texas, far away from here.” If they ask, “Why did he do it?”, you might say, “We don’t really know” (which is what seems to be the case currently). For terrorist attacks like the one in Buffalo, you might say, “When some people are very angry, they get so angry that they hurt others.” For children, it is not helpful to characterize the perpetrator as “a bad guy” or “an evil person,” because this can turn them into a kind of bogeyman in the child’s mind. It is more helpful over time to say, “This person did something very bad." If a child asks, “Why didn’t God stop him?”, you can again answer simply and clearly with what you believe, including answers like “I don’t know; I wish he had,” or “I wish God stopped things too,” or “God gives humans the job of stopping things like this.”
4. Reassure children without making big promises.
I learned from the consulting psychologist at my last classroom job to say, “Me and all your other teachers, and your parents and your family, are here to protect you and keep you safe. We will always be here to protect you.” It is tempting to say, “This will never happen here,” or “It will never happen again,” but we actually can’t promise these things. If the child asks, “What if it happens here?” you might say, “I hope that it won’t, and I don’t think that it will. But many people work together to keep us safe and stop people from doing this. They work very hard to keep these things from happening.”
5. Be ready for a question to pop up at odd times, and take it seriously when it does.
Sometimes students will hear information and only later be concerned about it. When this happens, slow down what you’re doing to be with the child and take the question seriously, even if it seems to you to be odd timing.
I have found this article (from 2015) to be helpful, written by a parent in Paris after the Bataclan attack. For older children, through middle school and high school, I have found that it is meaningful to be honest about one’s own fears and concerns, and to be open to the serious discussions and questions that come from these. It is also very helpful for older children, like us adults, to have something to do. A shared quiet time of prayer, maybe using a repetitive prayer like the Trisagion, is an immediate option. Or they might be interested in raising money for groups like Everytown, or writing a letter to a politician.
It can be unsettling to hear children struggling with such terrible events, but if we love them, we will stand with them in the midst of it. I hope you will join me in this. All of you with children of your own or who work with children are in my prayers this week especially.
Yours,
Emily Garcia
Family Ministry Consultant
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Prayers from the Bishop and Gun Safety Resources
Bishop Curry and other church leaders offered prayerful and practical responses to the mass shooting in Texas yesterday. Watch Bishop Curry's video and read the responses here. Explore resources for responding to gun violence here. |
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