Heal Our World

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In the past few weeks more horrific mass shootings have occurred. In Buffalo, New York, at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood, an 18-year-old male white supremacist murdered 10 people and injured 3 others. In my state of Texas, an 18-year-old male murdered 19 fourth-grade students and 2 teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, at a medical building a gunman murdered 4 people and wounded many others, and then killed himself.

In the United States there have already been 233 mass shootings this year. Mass shootings have averaged more than one per day so far this year.

Relatives, friends, and whole communities are traumatized by all these mass shootings. Parents are trying to talk to their children, some as young as seven, who are asking if they’re safe at school or anywhere.

Schools, grocery stores, medical facilities, churches, theaters, restaurants, concerts—are we safe anywhere?

At times I feel completely overwhelmed and don’t know how to respond to all this violence and so many other injustices that daily come to my attention. I’ve tried to respond in a variety of ways, but often wonder if anything I do makes a difference.

We are called to resist violence and injustice, to act so that all people are safe and free to become all we’re created to be in the divine image. We can resist with our actions and our words. The young man who murdered the people in Buffalo was fueled by white supremacist words on social media and elsewhere. We can resist in many ways, including these:

• Vote for legislators committed to stop gun violence.
• Call and write members of Congress to insist that they pass substantive gun safety laws.
• Support organizations working to end gun violence.
• Join protest marches and rallies to end gun violence.
• Join organizations and churches working to dismantle white supremacy, racism, patriarchy, misogyny, sexism, and heterosexism that fuel violence.
• Speak and write words inclusive in gender and race, words that give value to people of all races and genders in the divine image.

We can take action, even though it may seem small in comparison to the magnitude of the problems. Our actions and words can make a difference. Joined together with others, we increase our power to resist violence and injustice and to bring change.

I find my place in the resistance through voting, calling and writing legislators, supporting organizations to end gun violence, working with others in Equity for Women in the Church, New Wineskins Community, The Gathering, A Womanist Church, Ebenezer/herchurch Lutheran, Christian Feminism Today, Baptist Peace Fellowship, Alliance of Baptists, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and through writing and speaking.

Writing song lyrics is one of my callings. Songs empower social justice movements and can be a unifying force for change. We can sing our resistance. We can sing to bring healing, justice, and peace.

Vontril McLemore, my good friend and ministry partner at The Gathering and in New Wineskins Community, sings this reimagined “Pass Me Not” that combines the original words with new words from my hymn “Heal Our World, O Christ-Sophia”: