Category Archives: gun violence

One or the other

One says, Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb; another, Thou shalt not covet the livestock. One says, Give as good as you get; another, Do not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good. … Continue reading

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The road to Emmaus

If the risen Christ stumbled through our doors, unexpected and unrecognized, visibly wounded in his head and his heart and his hands, how would we treat him? As a victim of our human violence, or as a threat? Continue reading

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Prayer in the aftermath

Offered in case it is helpful in your context in this week or another. Feel free to adapt as needed. Gracious God, king of peace, who brought again from the dead our Saviour Jesus Christ after we had crucified him … Continue reading

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For all the alleluias

For all the alleluias that fall into the empty grave before the earth is cast down; alleluias that burst like a disappointed balloon upon the tongue; alleluias that took a wrong turn and never came home; for all of the alleluias that become ululations for the still dead and dying; alleluias gasping; … Continue reading

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Sirens

Time was when the siren was a singer of sea mist; her music has hardened, staccato,and her figure, smooth and long like steel; still, she kills, and from a distance the echo returns as a wail falling and rising like smoke foreshadowing the ashes of the dead

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Triduum

While the dough was doing its thing, I went out to the forge, made one more cross out of gun barrels. Continue reading

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Preaching from the shadows

The sound of mallet on metal
wood and splintered flesh
ricochets around the city walls
shivering the fabric of
the crowd that clothes the alleyways
too often lost in thought and prayers
we fall without an echo
into the open grave Continue reading

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Capitalizing on panic

On the stories we tell ______________________ I saw a story in the Washington Post where a man named Kevin Thomas started making pop-up safe rooms for schools – kind of like the panic rooms that became a status symbol in … Continue reading

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A psalm of lament

We turn to you, Compassionate One,
with your endless forbearance and infinite mercy, and pray that your patience will one day break;

because it seems some days that ours, our capacity for carnage, is everlasting. Continue reading

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From the forge

I madea heart; hammeredaway at steelhot from the forgeuntil I got into its groove,turned the base untilit barely lookedlike the barrel of a gunany more.I sliced it with the sawuntil it wouldn’t holdany more.I thought aboutthat Bible verse,turning hearts of … Continue reading

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