Good Shepherd
Granite Springs, NY
Come Grow with Us
as We Journey Deeper with God & One Another.
All Welcome & Invited.
Hello Beloved of God in the Christian community of Good Shepherd, and beyond: 
  
Below is a letter from Bishop Dietsche, in response to the recent horrific events of Uvalde and of Buffalo. I commend it to you. (Click here for a pdf of the letter.)
 
Many are asking: "What can, and what should we do, in response to such continuous evil?" 
 
Here are my initial thoughts – 9 things we each can do to make a tangible difference NOW! 
 
1. One important way to fashion the world a better place is to pray our concerns -- and then to act on them. 

2. In solidarity with others around the U.S., for instance, I am adding to my prayers those who were murdered and those who love them in the recent acts of evil in Uvalde, TX and Buffalo, NY. While hard, I am also going to follow the commandments of Christ and pray for the perpetrators as well, that they may experience eventual redemption through God's justice. I pray we never become complacent. I pray we always name and resist evil, even when it is unpopular and may generate conflict, always replacing evil with the nurturing and the good. I pray we repent and recommit, when we fail, to the hard work of living the Gospel in our daily lives. Remember: the Christian spiritual life isn't about perfection; it's about hard-won, sacrificial progress in compassion and ever-greater identification with the other. "The harvest is plentiful," Jesus said. "The laborers are few." (Matt. 9:35-38). There's always more room at the table for servers of compassion! I pray we shall indeed never cease to work for the Kingdom of God, a society of ever greater harmony and peace through the Holy Spirit's presence in justice and truth.

3. Call or reach out to me if I can support you in any way. Some already have; I pray more will.  

4. Remember our families and their children in your prayers. Remember and pray for public servants, like medical personnel and police, who strive to protect and to serve and daily put themselves in harm's way for others. Remember and pray for the families of those who have lost loved ones in past shootings; each of these events marks a hellish retraumatizing for them.

5. Take a stand on gun laws. Educate yourself. You may want to begin by learning what the national Episcopal Church has to say on these matters: Episcopal Church Policies on Gun Safety and Gun Reform 
  
6. Consider coming to our Ascension Day Eucharist tomorrow and the Steakfest afterwards, starting at 6:30 pm. Just show up. It shall be good and healing to pray together and celebrate the Eucharist together, and then to support each other and to enjoy casual fellowship together, perhaps even on the front lawn. Bring a picnic blanket and some food, if you like. 

7. If you are a pledging member of COGS, please vote for the Educate/Validate survey by email or paper ballot, if you have not already. LGBTQ+ persons are often targets of violent hatred and bigotry.
 
8. March. There will be rallies. Attend. Speak your peace. That's what the truly patriotic do when domestic terrorists tear at the heart of our people, our pluralistic society, and the rational rule of law.

9. Ponder these 4 quotes. The first three are from Dom Helder Camara, a great 20th century Brazilian Roman Catholic Archbishop: 
 
"Without justice and love, peace will always be a great illusion." 
  
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." 
 
"When we are dreaming alone, it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality." 
  
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for THEY shall be called the children of God." (Matt. 5:9) 
  
Let us continue to love and support one another, and the world. 
 
With love and prayers, 
 
Fr. Hal
May 25, 2022
My Dear Sisters and Brothers,
 
Just one week apart, this country has witnessed acts of unspeakable violence and evil in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.  The killings in Buffalo were clearly and unambiguously an act of racist violence, specifically targeting shoppers in a supermarket in a predominantly Black part of the city. They were killed only because they were Black, by a killer motivated only by the same hatred for people of color which we have seen in places across our country over and over. They were wonderful people, and they were taken from us by an explosion of racist hate. The killings in Uvalde yesterday targeted children at school and became the second most violent school shooting in our history. We will never know the motive, if a motive is even conceivable, of a killer who deliberately targets elementary school boys and girls. They were beautiful children, and they too were taken from us beyond our understanding. The faces of Buffalo, and now the faces of Uvalde - almost all of them African American and Latino - are imprinted on us now, and all of their gentle souls have joined the great cloud of witnesses which surrounds us and prays for us and compels us toward greater justice.
 
It is unquestionably obvious that the killers in Buffalo and Uvalde were figures of great evil. They were people driven by the very worst impulses imaginable. At baptism, we ask those who would choose the Christian faith if they will “renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God,” and we ask them if they will “turn to Jesus Christ … and put their whole trust in his grace and love.” In those baptismal promises we vow that we will not allow the evil in this world to mark us and define us and determine the ways that we live with one another, but that we will order our lives by the gospel of Jesus Christ and the love of God. It comes to us again to consider how we will live out our baptismal life and covenant in a culture so broken, in which such racism and hatred and violence are constants in our sight, and in which access to guns is an absolute. There is something fundamentally broken in America. There have already been 213 mass shootings in our country this year, 27 of them in schools. That is the world and culture in which we have been called into the Christian life.
 
After Buffalo, we were called to prayer for the victims and for their families. After Uvalde, we are called to prayer for the victims and for their families. That we are doing.  But we must also be passionate advocates for protective legislation, and for the kind of reasonable and realistic gun control across America that we have in New York. We must call out evil where we see it, and we must vote, and join our efforts to defeat those who perpetuate the violence and unbounded evil that takes life after life after life. It may be all we have, but the gentle people of Buffalo and the innocent children of Uvalde demand of us at the very least this much.
 
With every good wish, I remain

Yours,

+Andy

The Right Reverend Andrew ML Dietsche
Bishop of New York