Category Archives: gun violence

Among the living and the dead

Posted on June 19, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

When the demons saw Jesus, they were afraid. They begged for their lives. When Jesus showed mercy even to the demons, they proved their destructive nature by plunging the herd of swine into the sea. Did he not know it must be so? It was their nature to be evil spirits. It was, it is Jesus’ nature to be love. Continue reading →

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Goose

Posted on June 17, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

I knew that just because I was inadequate to the task, that did not let me off the hook for doing what I could to try to relieve the suffering of another creature. Seeing his pain made me, in some obscure way, responsible for his healing. Continue reading →

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It’s not nothing

Posted on June 15, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

What we did is not enough, but it was, I believe, inspired. What happened in DC this weekend is certainly not enough, nor is it yet even a done deal, but if it is a beginning, it is something. I remember learning about inertia in high school physics: a body at rest is inclined to continue to do nothing. A body that begins to move has the chance to collect momentum. Continue reading →

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Do not harden your heart

Posted on June 2, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

More guns in our children’s schools do not make our children, nor their teachers, safer. Continue reading →

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Do not leave us comfortless

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

“Do not leave us comfortless.” What if our prayer was not for ourselves, for our own comfort, but that we might not be without comfort to offer to those who are beyond consolation?  Continue reading →

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Resolution

Posted on May 16, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

We are not trying to paper over the cracks. I hear the racism that drove a young man to Buffalo this weekend to kill people buying food. I hear the despair of the victims of crime, and those who feel imprisoned in their own lives. I am not suggesting, God forbid, that wearing orange, running a gun buyback, planting a seed makes everything ok. But as long as we have breath, we have to do something. Continue reading →

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Holy Innocents: a pieta

Posted on December 28, 2021 by Rosalind C Hughes

The stoles are cobbled together from whatever orange fabric I can lay my hands on in any given season; the constant that binds them together as a family – except for the orange colour – is the children’s handprint pattern that finishes each one off at the ends… Continue reading →

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Suffer the little children

Posted on December 17, 2021 by Rosalind C Hughes

Rumours of rumours; and the rub is that in this country, in this time, we cannot dismiss them until the day is done and the sun has set over the farthest gate. It should not be this way. Continue reading →

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Prayer for an end to mass shootings

Posted on May 1, 2021 by Rosalind C Hughes

My God,can we not go one week,sabbath to sabbath,without a mass shooting? Will you not beatour pistols into ploughshares,our shotguns into shovels,our rifles into rakes,massage some feeling intoour hearts of stone? I sigh, open my eyes;the mirror stares back in … Continue reading →

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Are we there yet?

Posted on March 28, 2021 by Rosalind C Hughes

There is nothing in Christ’s story that would justify our sacrifice of children, women, grocery shoppers, police officers, and passers by to defend our right to reserve weapons of violence to ourselves. On the contrary, the resurrection is God’s ultimate judgement on the violence that nailed Jesus to the cross. The resurrection is God’s utter negation and reversal of all that would kill the beloved. Continue reading →

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