Not Yet 10 in Nashville

Not Yet 10 in Nashville

(“All I want is to know Christ and the power of his rising from death. I want to share in Christ’s sufferings and become like him in his death.” Philippians 3:10)

Christ, far too many have taken lives with
your name on their lips. They say your name,
they invoke your power, they quote from a book where they find
a sword here and
a war here and
walls falling here and
sulfur consuming the cities on the plain.

Why do we forget, what the hell is wrong with our
broken memory,
that you told us we have no idea what spirit we are when
we want to rain fire upon our own enemies?

We give weapons that rip through flesh and incinerate
organs and aortas, and blame the crazy ones who pull the triggers.
I have to say, my Jesus, my brother,
the crazy are the ones who let anyone possess those guns
meant to tear a human to shreds.

Christ, they did the worst to you. Christ, they mocked and
cursed and sneered for you to leap from the nails and save yourself.
Meanwhile a legion of angels waited for your word. And you never
whispered
a single command.

Today three children, not yet 10, were obliterated by a shooter with
an AR-15 (three legislators sport them as tie clips and lapel pins)
and they pray for the parents and go home
to shoot another family photo armed with semi-automatic weapons
legal and celebrated,
worshiped and idolized,
over the lives of third graders who never saw it coming.

Christ, why do we never learn the cross? Jesus, why do we never trust
the way
of Peace
that surpasses every strategy conceived by
men who only hope for red to fill the streets when you
return again.

All
i
want

Is to know you.
more
so
much
more.

To know the power the gentleness wields,
to know the subversion that turns us away from
the killing fields,
the halls where bullets whine louder and louder
since the last time only weeks ago.

We are sick and broken. We are full of cowardly unspoken
love that
would save our babies, comfort their daddies and mommies,
and protect them like we say we protect
those that are yet unborn.

Christ, we do not know you.
Turn us. Teach us the power of
melting every weapon into crosses,
hoes and rakes for community gardens,
and let us never
study the weapons of war
again.