Pausing to remember the shooting victims in Arizona

Yesterday at St. Paul's our building was bustling with activity: meetings underway in the parish hall, voices filling the building, and Lori and I were leading one of our small groups upstairs.

At 11 am we stopped.

President Obama had asked that our nation take a moment of silence at 11 am to remember the shooting victims in Arizona. Whatever your politics, whatever you do, I hoped you stopped for a moment or two to remember Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the six people who died on Saturday at the hands of a deranged young man.

At St. Paul's, at 11 am, we stopped. When we did, we could hear the bells from across the street at the University of Virginia, the school founded by Thomas Jefferson. I counted the bells peel eleven, and I listened for the silence in between the bells and wondered for whom the bells toll? They toll for our democracy, which seems to have so little hope these days, and to be filled with so much poison in our politics that our nation is having trouble listening to itself let alone to its creator. The gun lobby has our political leaders so intimidated that all discussion of reasonable gun controls is already off the table in Congress.

I must confess my own hope falters.

From where is my hope to come? This morning, in Morning Prayer, we hear from Isaiah 40:25-31:

"He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will feel exhausted, but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not be faint."

And from today's reading from Ephesians 1:15-23:

"I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you."

My prayer for our nation and each of us is that we will be renewed and strengthened, our hope restored, and may we all mount up with wings like eagles and do the work we have been given to bring kindness, healing and justice to this world.

No more of this

Sorry, no Monday Funnies today.

The shootings in Arizona speak to a sickness in our language, our politics, and the way we talk to each other.

Six people died including a nine-year-old girl who came to hear her Congresswoman speak.

This never should have happened.

Never.

Excuses will not hold.

We must find a way to take the hatred and vitriol out of our political rhetoric, out of our media, out of our everyday conversation. It begins with us. Today.

No more of this.

And we need to get guns out of the hands of sick people and ban them from events with our public officials. Our democracy is in danger if our officials cannot speak to us in relative safety. Vote as you will, but let's do so in an atmosphere of respect and safety.

Now.

* * *

Today, please keep the injured in your prayers, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, their families, and remember those who died:

Judge John M. Roll

Christina Taylor Green

Dorothy Morris

Phyllis Schneck

Dorwan Stoddard

Gabe Zimmerman