Reflections on the Uvalde School Shooting
Lord God, have pity on those who mourn for the innocent children and adults in Uvalde who were slaughtered by the violence of our fallen world. Amen.
Late yesterday afternoon I began seeing news reports and social media posts about yet another school shooting, this time in Uvalde, TX. Early reports said two children had been killed and many more injured. Last night that tally rose to 14 children and one teacher. This morning the number had risen again to 19 children and two teachers.
Once more we are participants in this country's national liturgy: kill, mourn, thoughts and prayers, don't make it political, wait for the next event.
The pro-gun lobby is fond of saying things like, “All it takes is a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun,” or, “We need to arm teachers,” or, “We need to train children on how to escape better,” or, “That's the price of freedom.”
The fact is that there were police officers on the scene (good guys with guns) who didn't stop the bad guy with a gun. Part of becoming a teacher shouldn't include a class in shooting proficiency. Training children to escape an active shooter places these events on the same scale as teaching children what to do in the event of a tornado – it's an act of nature we are powerless to stop.
People talk about being pro-life, but if you continually fight for the unencumbered ability to purchase firearms you have no right to that claim. Where having the ability to kill children at school, worshipers in churches and synagogues, people in grocery stores and shopping malls is more important to you than the ability to be in those places without fearing for your life, you have elevated the freedom to be killed over the freedom to live.
This country talks about being a Christian nation with Christian values. First of all, it never was. Second of all, if we were really paying attention to what Jesus was saying we might want to drop our weapons and focus on love, justice, and mercy. Instead, we have become a nation that is more concerned with controlling the minds, mouths, and bodies of women than we are with the health and safety of those most in need of health and safety. We have become a nation comfortable with child sacrifice on the altar of modern-day Molech than we are with stemming the tide of gun violence.
Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the LORD has spoken:
When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Our hands are full of blood and we are being devoured by the sword.
May God have mercy on our souls.
Todd+