Mine. Yours. Anyone’s.

Violence can interrupt any day, any life. What can you do to protest this truth?

The first time I saw a gun pulled was in high school.

After a late-night choir practice at a church in downtown Flint, Michigan, my boyfriend and I were “saying goodbye” in his car. (Yes, we were making out.)

Suddenly two cars tore into the church parking lot next to us. A man jumped out of one car, waving a handgun in the air and yelling at the other car. My boyfriend and I both ducked down, desperately trying to keep ourselves safe and hidden under the dashboard.

The longest 60 seconds of my life followed, heart beating like a frantic bird, pulse thudding in my ears, listening to the shouts outside, praying that we would be ok, that we would survive.

Then we heard one car squeal away, and the other peeled out after it. Silence followed.

The heaviest silence, in the darkest parking lot.

I drove home right after, desperate to escape. I called him as soon I got there to let him know I was safe, both of us still shaken. Did we tell our parents? The school? The choir director? I vaguely remember all three (apologies to my parents if this is the first time you’re hearing the story; such is adolescence).

But what I took away from that terrifying encounter was the truth that violence can interrupt any day, any life, at any moment.

Mine. Yours. Anyone’s.

//

What more can any of us say about Uvalde? Or Buffalo? Or any of the hundreds of cities and schools across the United States where gun violence has destroyed lives?

I turn to Scripture where psalms and prophets cry out with anger and anguish all-too-familiar.

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?

   How long will you hide your face from me? 

How long must I bear pain in my soul,

   and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 

(Psalm 13:1-2)

Then he said to me, ‘Have you seen this, O mortal? Is it not bad enough that the house of Judah commits the abominations done here? Must they fill the land with violence, and provoke my anger still further? (Ezekiel 8:17)

Suddenly, one of those with Jesus put his hand on his sword, drew it, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:51-52)

Agitated and anguished, I ask why more people aren’t speaking up, speaking out, crying for this country to do whatever it can to stop this evil from erupting again and again and again.

Will it take until all of us are grieving?

//

My Uncle Jim was murdered. Shot in the head during a burglary attempt at his restaurant.

I cared about gun violence before he was killed; sure I did. My first child skipped off to preschool the same year that Sandy Hook happened. I’ve lived through hundreds of mass shootings in the decade since; we all have, numbing to their recurrent horror.

But when my family became the ones in the headlines, my aunts’ and uncles’ grief plastered in photos on the newspaper’s front page, I realized that everything changes once it happens to the ones you love.

I hope you never know what that feels like.

Uncle Jim & me at my wedding.

//

There are exactly zero ways to tie up a neat bow on anything this week. I won’t even try.

What I will urge you to do is something. Anything. Now.

Let your life lead you. If you’re a parent, a grandparent, a godparent, an aunt, an uncle, a neighbor. If you’re a teacher, a coach, a volunteer, a catechist, a minister. If you’re a poet, a politician, a retiree, a stay-at-home parent. Whatever the particulars of your life and love and work, let them pull you in the direction of holy action. This is how God speaks through our lives, calling each of us to work for justice and mercy.

I guarantee that regardless of where you locate yourself politically, religiously, or ideologically, you do not accept the murder of schoolchildren as collateral damage for citizenship in this country. We do not have to live like this.

I did plenty of things this week I did not want to do. I talked to young children about school shootings. I prayed for shattered families in Uvalde, knowing full well their fresh anguish and their forever grief. I called my representatives and called them again and again.

But none of this was hard, compared to the horror of having someone you love erased from your life because of a bullet tearing through their body.

Violence can interrupt any day, any life, at any moment.

Mine. Yours. Anyone’s.

What can you do today to protest this truth? To change things for the ones you love?