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I feel extremely blessed as I write this and I’ll tell you why…

I dropped my daughter off at school today (she’s in 2nd grade). And I got to pick her up. And we went to the beach and then I took her to gymnastics and then we came home and I just tucked her in bed before sitting down to write this.

As blessed as I feel, I also feel like it’s unfair. Why did I deserve to pick my daughter up from school today when 19 parents/caregivers in Uvalde, Texas couldn't? They dropped their kids off and never got to pick them up because they died in another senseless act of violence where a kid murders a building full of other kids for no reason at all.

Right now, I’m examining my impulses…

I want to jump on social media and shout into my squeaky little digital bullhorn. I want to type in all caps, “TAKE ALL OF THE FUCKING GUNS.” I want to lash out at people who I think are the cause of this growing infestation of armed violence in this country. I want to make them release their death grip on these weapons of mass destruction that should only be in the hands of the military but that any schmoe can get their hands on.

I want to attack. I want to take this collective violence we feel, ball it up, and throw it at the people I feel are in the wrong. I want to strangle them with their own guns that they cling so tightly to.

I. Want. Revenge.
No shit. It’s real right now.

But, man… I have to breathe. And I hope you can breathe too.

What we’re feeling is an ancient ancestral impulse. A tribal impulse to create rivals and kill. Eye for an eye, baby. Let’s get ’em. Light the torches. Grab the pitchforks. And let’s go.

That’s where I am as I type these words. If you came by my house right now, you may just convince me to join you.

But as I breathe, I see the dynamic that’s playing out.

“We are relational beings before we are rational beings.”
— Fr. James Alison

I am not living from a rational place right now. And neither is anyone. That’s because, as Fr. Alison so aptly points out, we are relational beings before we are rational beings. It’s hard-wired in us.

When shit hits the fan like it did today (and the other day in Buffalo, NY, and countless other days in our recent history), our first primal impulse is to want to kill “them.” You have a “them” and the “other side” has a “them” (namely, you). This is what we want to do. And once we do that, once we spill that first splash of blood from the group we blame — THEN we get rational. We rationalize our violence. We justify our aggression in logical ways.

I so badly want to do this. Right now.

But I have to remind myself (and thusly, I hope to remind you since you’re on the other end of this transmission)… Jesus was the last sacrifice. God in Jesus hung on a cross to absorb our tribal bloodlust once and for all. He has taken it all onto himself so that we can look at what we’re doing to each other knowing we are forgiven AND SO we can move forth in compassion regarding what we’ve so badly tarnished.

I pray that we can do this. I pray that those who cling so tightly to military-grade guns can stop trying to relationally hold their ground so as to gain approval from their people in opposition to we who they deem are coming for their guns to strip their freedoms. I pray that left and right can stop fighting each other and see that the only way to move forward is to move forward together. Both of our kids are dying and killing. Both of our kids are growing up in a world where school is not safe. Both sides are dropping kids off at school with less and less confidence that they’ll be able to pick them up at the end of the day.

God, save us. Save us from this violence that we inflict on each other. It is the same violence flowing through our veins that hung you on a cross because we needed someone to blame. But you, Lord, you absorbed our violence. You, dear God, willingly died to show us that by killing our neighbors, we are killing you. The nails driven into your hands are the bullets we drive into each other. Restore our world, bring peace to our sad lot, and help us move beyond this violence into your Kindom and shalom.

Lord, draw near to those in need tonight — those parents, families, and friends who never expected this would happen to them.

Bring new life where we have dealt only death. In your name, dear Jesus, we pray,

Amen.

Along the Way with Jonas Ellison

I got to pick her up from school today