again and again, our hearts shattered by the echo of the gunshot

by bam

church massacre

the morning light spilled across the front pages, across faces bowed and streaked in tears. it didn’t take long till my own tears were added to the morning’s misery. a “lone wolf,” a man who sat for an hour near a pastor leading bible study, in a historic charleston, south carolina church, pulled out a pistol, and, one by one, took aim and fired, riddled the prayerful, felled nine lives, including the church pastor, a revered state senator.

i’d come downstairs in this quiet old house to write of something else, but i picked up the news pages off the stoop, and there it was in all three papers: “deadly church attack;” “scene of carnage has long history of pain, pride and dignity;” “loner held in church killings.” sadly, only in chicago was the story “below the fold,” meaning it got second billing to something else, and in this case the “else” was a silver trophy for men in ice skates.

because i’ve spent more time away from screens in recent days, i’d not heard the news in the wake of its happening. i found out the old-fashioned way: reading the news after it had been gathered, laid out, printed and delivered to my door step. it hit me no less hard for the time delay between occurrence and finding out. in fact, it might have hit me harder, for i absorbed it in the sacred silent cloak of dawn. alone in my kitchen, i pored over the images, the words.

once again, our hearts are shattered by the ravages of mad folk and guns fired.

once again, my first response was to shudder, to find myself in goosebumps, followed swiftly by fury, followed by the image of a single candle flame burning in the dark: we can only light this world, we can only trigger change, by living each and every act of each and every day with as much deep down love, as much empathy towards whomever is in our path, as we can possibly muster.

that the echo of the gunshot rang out and ricocheted off the walls of a historic black church, a church with deepest roots in the march for justice that is the civil rights movement in america, only sickens me more.

i turn back to the image of the woman whose face is streaked in tears.

sometimes in the wake of awfulness like this, i feel the urge to take my children by the hand and huddle with my arms round their shoulders, to keep them safe in a world where the walls between sanity and insanity feel too permeable. where i don’t know who will barge into my grocery store or my children’s school, or my synagogue, for God’s sake, or my church, and ignite the ugliness, the horror.

mostly, i shake that off, and inhale a second breath, one that grounds me more firmly than ever, one that roots me in the deepest conviction and takes me back to the words of my beloved dorothy day: “little by little;” it is only through our little acts of courage, our little acts of love that we stand half a chance of mounting forces that might wither the ugliness, the horror, that intends to roll our way.

on the days when the world’s news rattles me, and it rattles me often, i am left with so very little in my counter-campaign. i have a heart, and i have words. i have imagination, too, thank God. and in my imagination right now, i am traveling to the side of the woman streaked in tears. i am holding her hand, and wrapping my arm around her shoulder. i am dabbing her tears, and i am breathing a promise: i will love more wildly today. i will scatter seeds of all that is good and gentle and heart-opening. yes, even here at my old kitchen table. i will start with love, the fiercest force i know. the one that, like a bullet, can penetrate the heart. can open it. can settle in and make for a peaceable kingdom after all.

where will you begin?