Context

My great-great grandfather, George H. Lewis,
who died in 1863 in Washington, D.C.

Context. That’s what I’m always looking for. Growing up in Connecticut, where parts of my family have been since 1634, I had a profound sense of context. It was all around me. In downtown Meriden was the high school (in my time a middle school, now demolished) where my father graduated from high school in 1940. Across the street is the big brownstone Meriden High School building, a late Victorian pile, where my grandparents went to school. My great-great grandfather’s name is on the Civil War memorial in front of City Hall, again, across the street.

Every Memorial Day we went to the East Main Street Cemetery to decorate graves. There, my great-great grandfather is buried. He died of dysentery during the Civil War. My great-great grandmother is there next to him, along with her second husband and their infant children. In the same plot is a memorial to my great-great-great grandfather who lost his shirt in 1830’s by speculating in real estate. He went out to Iowa to start over, hoping to bring his family out. He died out there. One of my life’s ambitions is to find his grave and find out what happened to him.

I grew up with a deep sense of context, that I was part of a continuity. I always had a sense of my ancestors surrounding me. I have a glimmer of what many peoples around the world have, of seeing their ancestors with them, not just dead and buried. Now that my mother has died (6 years ago) and my father is in memory care, I have many family treasures--a photograph of my great-great grandfather, presumably taken before he left for the war, never to come back alive; a print of Abraham Lincoln reading the Bible to his wife and son (which turns out was based on a photograph of Lincoln leafing through a photo album with his son, and Mrs. Lincoln pasted in); several keepsakes of my mother’s which she saved from her childhood, such as a  metal German candy canister given to her by a German boarder who stayed with her family for awhile; a little incense burner in the shape of a birdhouse on top of a tree stump, and other reminders of her.

For me at least, it seemed natural to study history. As a pastor I’m not a professional historian, but history is very much a part of what I do. I preach from a text that is thousands of years old, and help my congregation understand what the text meant to the people who wrote it and first heard it, and what it can mean to them.

Reproduction of a Novgorod chess set, ca. 1300

On my own, I seek out the past. Anyone who has read previous posts knows that I enjoy making reproductions of chess sets from the past. Once in awhile I enjoy buying an antique set online, but the sets I reproduce exist only in fragmentary form and must be reconstructed. That’s the fun part. As I play a game with a medieval Russian set I have a sense of the people who would have used such a set in Novgorod 700 years ago. I also enjoy painting copies of medieval and Renaissance devotional art. Same thing as the chess sets. I enjoy seeing such art in museums, and I often pause and pray silently before them, as their original owners would have. It’s easier to spend a long time with a piece of art at home, however.

All of this helps me to understand myself in context. I’m not just an isolated individual. Each of us is a part of that great cloud of witnesses.

Don't Blame God for Las Vegas

“Well, my book is written--let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell.”
Letter to W. D. Howells, 22 Sept 1889 (referring to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court)

I came across this quote from Mark Twain years ago and it is one of my favorite quotes from him. This is how I feel today after the shooting in Las Vegas. To say that I am angry would be to trivialize anger. I am burning inside. I am burning with rage that the shooter was able to buy such armaments legally. I am burning with rage that our government has done nothing, nothing to prevent this from happening. This was avoidable.  The automatic weapons that he used fired hundreds of rounds, and he came to the scene loaded for bear. It looks as though he emptied several weapons before taking his own life.

As a pastor I am often asked why God allows bad things to happen. If it is truly one of those happenings that have no explanation, I’ll say that I don’t know. But this, this has an explanation and it is an ugly one. Our Congress has been flooded with hundreds of thousands of dollars by the NRA to pay off mostly Republican senators and House members so that they will vote against legislation curbing access to guns in this country.

Statistics show that even with our uneven, state-by-state laws concerning the sale and possession of automatic weapons, our society is awash in automatic weapons. People who have absolutely no need to own such weapons have them. To be sure, probably many of these people also lock up and handle these weapons responsibly. But the mere availability of them makes it possible for people who intend harm to buy them. Frankly, I am willing to sacrifice the right of law-abiding citizens to access these weapons if it means that dangerous people won’t be able to get them.

Our country suffers under a deep-seated illness, an illness of violence. Violence against other people has become legitimized for various reasons. The entertainment industries thrive on images of violence. Video games desensitize children to the real-time consequences of violence. Violence against people of color and LGBTQ people has become legitimized in the minds of some. Until this epidemic of violence can be dealt with there will be no solution. We need to start with ourselves and work outward to include all people. Violence against innocent people is never, never legitimate, yet every time people are slaughtered in these numbers and nothing is done to curb the violence our government makes a statement that these losses are acceptable. One friend posted on Facebook today that the debate over gun control ended with the Sandy Hook shootings because it became acceptable for children to be slaughtered.

I get angry when after these shootings I hear politicians saying that their “thoughts and prayers” were with the victims and their families. Nonsense. This is just code language for the NRA to hear, that the senators and house members who are under their control are obeying their pay masters. Thoughts and prayers are worthless, less than worthless, when they are not followed by action.

The culture of violence that has our country in its thrall is only getting worse. Police continue to be let off the hook for shooting unarmed black motorists. Toddlers access guns that are not locked up properly and shoot other toddlers. It is far more likely that a handgun in a home will be used against a member of that family than against an intruder, yet people snap them up because it makes them feel safe.

Friends, we are not safe. Our society is filled with guns of all sorts. I have no quarrel with a person who follows all the rules and hunts for sport. I have no quarrel with someone who enjoys skeet shooting with a friend. I have no quarrel with someone who goes target shooting on the weekend.

My father worked for a bank all his career, and was responsible for the buildings themselves. If anything happened with one of the buildings he got a call, even if it was in the middle of the night. When I was around 13 he was called out several nights because there had been a bomb threat in one of the bank branches. He went in the building along with the police, pistol drawn. He had all the permits needed, and regularly went target shooting. He kept the pistols he owned locked up, with the ammunition locked up separately. After he retired he sold his guns. He said he didn’t need them any more and he didn’t want the responsibility. Unfortunately, not all gun owners are that responsible.

Friends, we need to create a culture of peace. I realize that may sound too idealistic for some, but that is what I feel we need. It won’t happen tomorrow, but it will never happen unless we work toward it. We need to make it much more difficult for someone to pick up a gun because they are angry with a former employer, an estranged spouse, or with the world in general. We need to model conflict resolution that isn't based in squeezing a trigger. Until this becomes the norm, God help us.