Select Page

Uvalde, Buffalo, Chattanooga, Las Vegas, Florence South Carolina, Charleston, University City, Taft, and more.

In Portland this weekend there were 10 shootings with 10 people injured in less than 24 hours.

ENOUGH

Gun violence is a public health crisis.

June 3rd is Gun Violence Awareness Day,

You can join the community in wearing Orange and gathering at Holy Beanz Coffee Shop on June 4th. Details here.

https://www.portland.gov/oyvp/events/2022/6/4/wear-orange-2022

There is also an interfaith coalition working to create rules in Oregon that have reduced gun violence in other states including licensing for purchasers of fire arms and limits on ammunition purchases.

You can sign the initiative petition for this and get more information here.

lifteveryvoiceoregon.com

Say something.

Love someone.

Weep.

Yell.

This is not normal.

This is not how we should live.

I take great solace in the words from M Barclay of enfleshed

a reminder of the messy, holy ways of our deep faith

that calls us to wrestle and fight for love.

I recoil before spiritual intentions

aiming for peace

that is unaffected, untroubled, unchanged

by another white supremacist manifesto,

cascades of anti-trans bills,

or the cruel politics of war.

What comfort is untainted tranquility

that never has its own

sleepless nights

restless with grief,

talking with ghosts

of children and elders,

and a god that is tired.

I rest only in the company

of an honest and confused faith, broken

open and angry with no tidy answers,

but love that is willing to fight.

I don’t know exactly what it looks like in a body,

in a prayer,

in a daily life

to refuse to be resolved

while also refusing to wear out.

Pressed in either direction,

I find only dead ends.

So I feel downward.

Like roots.

Like lineages.

Like the dark, quiet soils

where time doesn’t exist.

Burrowing beneath the fragile, careful surface,

I seek the spiritual underground

where the unkempt and unruly

groan in those dense, wordless depths

and worms are busy

shifting the earth.