Checking My Pulse

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I’ve been quiet.

That’s likely not a big deal to you, but for those who know me, I am rarely quiet. It’s an aspect of myself that I sometimes judge, that I sometimes embrace, that I sometimes just observe. There are many rooftop shouters and I happen to be one on a lot of occasions. I’ve come to accept that about myself and let it be.

Yet… I find myself quiet in all the ways I normally echo through the halls of my life. This quiet is because I cannot figure out the first word to the next sentence that would make sense of the loss of life in these endless mass shootings.

I have been reading the words of others and watching us collectively attempt that tried-and-true five-part model of coming to terms with grief as offered by Kubler-Ross. The problem is, once we get past that first stage of denial, entering into anger, we have yet another mass killing that brings us back to that denial. We only get to two-step our way through something that requires so much more to navigate.

“What? Another one? How can this be? I blame [fill in the blank]” and we never get to that elusive next step of bargaining then depression then acceptance.

Denial. Anger. Denial. Anger. Repeat.

My first memory of participating in a collective shared grief was when I was 8 and made to attend an elementary school assembly. We were gathered because the Challenger space shuttle exploded shortly after liftoff and people died. I didn’t fully understand this gathering we were doing. This silence they wanted us to sit with made very little sense to me.

My fellow elementary school peers and I tried to sit quietly, but we were fidgeting and coughing, because we had no idea why we had to suddenly be quiet together. I remember looking around and wishing we could talk again. I wasn’t bored, just completely confused by the whole deal and wanting to get back to whatever we would be doing if this hadn’t happened. As I looked around I noticed that the teachers were crying. Then, the slow dawning of the devastation settled on me.

The space shuttle had a teacher on it. The teacher was going to space, literally doing something out of this world, and that teacher died. Wait, could my teacher die? I remember looking for Mrs. Likes, my favorite teacher, seeing her crying and thinking “That teacher was like Mrs. Likes! Mrs. Likes could die!”

And this was the most tragic thing my new-to-this-world brain could imagine. I was so sad and I cried so hard as I imagined my Mrs. Likes blowing up in a space shuttle.

When we see ourselves or those we love in the death what follows is such a devastation to the soul. This life that we have been taught to nurture could just go away. Just like that. And in violent, murders, someone makes it go away.

“What? Another one? But how can this be?”

I’m trans. I’m queer. I love so many people who are trans and who are queer. This makes relating to the Pulse massacre in Orlando all the more real to me. I was able to cast myself as a dancer on that dance floor without even knowing I was doing the casting. Images came to me with no provocation, like laying my body over my wife’s body because there would be no way on earth I would let her be exposed to death without trying every defense within me.

I have loved ones who are police officers. I could cast them very easily into the badges and uniforms in Dallas, imagining their last breath. I have loved ones who have darker skin than mine and they run a greater risk to die violently and prematurely every single day just because of the bias, prejudice and fear our society has endorsed since the start of our country.

Once we see ourselves and our loved ones in the rampant hate, victimization, and debilitating disparities we can never “un-see” it. And we will often do anything we can to stop it.

Denial. Anger. Denial. Anger. Repeat.

The versions of me, the versions of you, the versions of all those we love are the ones that have their pulse taken from them in places that often had served as sanctuary.

Our souls cry out in denial: “No! Not again! No!”

Our souls grapple with the anger that is oh so appropriate for this loss, “I will stop them! They will not harm me!”

Our souls begin to well up with tears as the bargaining begins, “Please…”

We only can utter the single word of bargaining as it is interrupted by yet another shooting, another body crumpling to the floor. We return to the desperate denial chorus “No! Not again! No!”

Denial.
Anger.
Denial.
Anger.
Repeat.

Then the slow dawning settles on me with an unshakable truth:
That could have been my pulse that slowed and then stopped.
That could have been your pulse that slowed and then stopped.
That could have been the pulse of every single person that we know, every single person we love, that slowed and then stopped.

I’ve been very quiet, stunned into emotional muteness, a seemingly endless moment of silence as I find a new use for my hands that once fidgeted during that assembly thirty years ago. I use those hands now to check my pulse, to feel that life force pumping through my being, to witness the miracle that keeps me breathing and to acknowledge my pulse continues where so many others have ended.

As we go through the dark brokenness that has become the norm, let us never forget how rich, how powerful, how mighty and how unyielding that stubborn flow of life within is in the face of all that attempts to end it. The true grit of the heart keeps on going.

That pulse within you is ancient. That pulse has been giving a rhythm to life in this world since the dawn of time. That pulse is what unites us. That pulse that lives in you speaks to the one that lives in me. The radical act of intentional living in the face of all the destruction is the very thing that steady pulse within has been calling us to all along. And it changes our options, it changes our paths when we invite in the flow of life.

Denial.
It says Look.
Anger.
It says Be.
Bargaining.
It says Please.
Depression.
It says Love.
Acceptance.
It says Live.

Safe Place

by Karen Richter

In this week following the mass shooting of LGBTQ persons of color in Orlando, I’ve read much about the importance of sanctuaries, places where a person can be who they truly are. This reflection is about one of those places in my life.

The picture above is my Great Aunt Georgia’s house in Asheville, North Carolina.  It’s a lovely bed and breakfast now, but when I was a kid it was just a rambly, way too large and slightly spooky old house.  My aunt was Georgia Virginia Daughdrill (at least that was her full name when I knew her.  She was married once before to my father’s favorite uncle.  Plus – two states!).  I called her Georgie.  She was my paternal grandmother’s much older sister and had pretty much raised my dad.  My whole life, she was the same… fluffy completely white hair, frumpy clothes, and the kind of pleasant unadorned woman’s face that people sometimes call handsome.  She’s gone now, and I’m realizing now that I remain completely clueless about her inner life.  I never knew her to attend church, but she sat down with the Good News Bible every night and once, when she thought I was already asleep, I heard her whispered nighttime prayers.

The house was a character in my childhood almost as much as my aunt and grandmother.  It was there that I stayed up until midnight the first time.  We had a freedom there, my brother and I, that seemed missing everywhere else.  It’s a well-worn family story that “my Aunt Georgie says I can do anything I want.”  My mother swears she came into Georgie’s kitchen once to find me licking the end of a stick of butter when I was a toddler.  The house was the setting for a bizarrely diverse cast of characters – friends, neighbors, boarders – that seemed completely normal to me, just like I knew it was normal for the bread to be always slightly burned.  As a very small child, I thought everyone had an Aunt Georgia.  And what a world it would be if we all did.

On Chestnut Street, Dennis and I spent many happy hours searching for hidden passageways and hollow spaces, deciding whether or not the old portrait’s eyes followed us as we walked down the hallway, or compiling dossiers on my aunt’s boarders.  We knew that “in the olden days,” the house had been owned by a local doctor.  We imagined ghosts of former patients gliding by us in the parlor.  I guess we felt so safe there, so loved and cherished by this wonderful aunt with no children of her own, that we had to invent dangers to keep ourselves occupied.  Or maybe we just watched too much Scooby Doo.

One of my earliest memories is a tree falling over at this house.  It was a huge tree (an oak, maybe?).  When it fell, it shook the whole house.  The top of the tree landed across the street.  It had been diseased for some time; when it fell, a misshapen cement blob fell out of the trunk.  It was like a giant’s dental filling, and it stayed where it had landed, in the corner of the yard along Chestnut Street.  I wonder if it’s still there.  And I wonder how big that tree would look to me now.

Aunt Georgia’s house was not what I would call child-friendly.  There was no closet full of toys or bunk beds or collection of kiddie DVDs.  In the sideboard, there was a shoebox of random small toys and junk that we fashioned into all manner of pretend items.  In the living room, there was an oriental-style rug that became a wonderful garden of my favorite sweets.  In the hall was a trunk with old-fashioned shoes and photos.  Occasionally, we would pull various items out of the trunk and play ‘going to Atlanta,’ an elaborate storytelling with parties and dancing in fancy dresses. Out in the yard were snapdragons and snowballs and low bushes that became hideaways.  We swung on the front porch glider and came inside just in time for Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw.

Although she always looked the same to me, as I grew older, Aunt Georgie did too.  When I was in high school, she moved out of Chestnut Street and into a more practical apartment.  When she closed the door at Chestnut Street, we all lost something precious.

Scripture for Today: Psalm 40.11-12

So now you, Lord—

don’t hold back any of your compassion from me.

Let your loyal love and faithfulness always protect me,

because countless evils surround me.

 

Prayer for Today

Spirit of Life, I pause to give thanks for places of safety. May I be that place of protection and acceptance for another!

Pulses stopped and souls began arriving in eternity

by William M. Lyons

Pulses stopped and souls began arriving in eternity even before the 911 calls reached help. First responders teetered on the brink of sacrifice. Hostages gave last hugs to dying friends and lovers in hope-to-survive silence. Trauma teams offered heroic efforts even as the blood of the victims they tried to save soaked through their sneakers. When the shooting stopped 49 very innocent people and 1 very guilty shooter were dead. But it’s not over.

To a person the gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people with whom I’ve spent these last five days — at vigils, in church, on line, and in person — have been caught off guard by the depth to which this latest American mass murder has shaken them. That includes me.

Pastoral words eluded me in the numbness, and in the anger, and in the gut-wrenching broken-heartedness I felt for the parents and siblings and grandparents and family members of choice who were praying that it was their unaccounted for loved one’s cell phone that was dead. For them it isn’t over. It will never be over.

Hours before the Pulse murders, Juan David Villegas-Hernandez shot and killed his wife and their 4 daughters in Roswell, New Mexico. But that multiple victim shooting was bumped from major newscasts by the bigger story from Orlando. I am writing this on the first anniversary of the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in which 9 black Christian Americans were murdered. Tragically, whatever day I would have written to you is now an anniversary of a mass shooting in our country. Any day. In fact, there were more mass shootings in the U.S. last year than there are days in a leap year. I am sure that for the Hernandez family, and for the survivors of the victims of the shooting that took place on whatever day you are reading this, the grief, the pain, the terror, and the aftermath are just as big as for the families reeling from what just happened in Orlando.

What happened last Sunday will make everything in life so much harder for the victims’ and for the perpetrator’s survivors. What happened last Sunday will make many things harder in all our futures. If there is one thing I am walking away from the Pulse massacre committed to, it’s refusing to love anyone to someone else’s death. In some way, I feel that being patient with people who oppose assault weapon bans and common sense gun control laws is loving my LGBT friends and family members to death. I didn’t say I wouldn’t or don’t love them. It’s just going to be so much harder for me to be patient with them. Assault weapons threaten all of us. People who have not been thoroughly screened carrying guns threatens all of us. With Orlando, gun control is no longer (as if it really ever was) about the right to bear arms and is absolutely about who lives and who dies.

It’s going to be harder explaining to families who’ve lost ones to violence motivated by sexual orientation, why churches let fear of losing members or income prevent them from becoming or even talking about becoming Open and Affirming. With Orlando, being gay stopped being a matter of whether or not the Bible says homosexuality is right or wrong, and become a matter of what the Bible says about whether LGBT people live or die.

It’s going to be harder for me not to be political as a spiritual leader. The Pulse massacre is an attack against LGBT people. It is an attack against Brown people. It is an attack against, not by, Muslims. Life and death are spiritual matters. When politics infringes on any person’s right to fully experience life, enjoy liberty, and pursue happiness, and when political leaders engage in or tolerate hate speech, politics has invaded the spiritual realm, and my response as a person of faith and as a spiritual leader must be, “Love wins! Game on!”

Beloved family members and friends of Stanley Almodovar III, Amanda Alvear, Oscar A Aracena-Montero, Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, Antonio Davon Brown, Darryl Roman Burt II, Angel L. Candelario-Padro, Juan Chevez-Martinez, Luis Daniel Conde, Cory James Connell, Tevin Eugene Crosby, Deonka Deidra Drayton, Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, Leroy Valentin Fernandez, Mercedez Marisol Flores, Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, Juan Ramon Guerrero, Paul Terrell Henry, Frank Hernandez,Miguel Angel Honorato, Javier Jorge-Reyes, Jason Benjamin Josaphat, Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, Christopher Andrew Leinonen, Alejandro Barrios Martinez, Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, Kimberly Morris, Akyra Monet Murray, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, Joel Rayon Paniagua, Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, Enrique L. Rios, Jr., Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, Edward Sotomayor Jr., Shane Evan Tomlinson, Martin Benitez Torres, Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, Luis S. Vielma, Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, Jerald Arthur Wright,

my heart is broken for you. I am confident that I can say on behalf of the Southwest Conference United Church of Christ we all hurt with you, and we share your righteous anger. We too are asking, “When will this stop?” and declare with you, “Enough is enough!!” We grieve the loss of such loving and talented members of your families and of the Hispanic community. We stand with our Muslim friends and neighbors for peace. May our efforts together lead to the peaceful realm for which we long together.

Long after our candles our vigil candles are extinguished, we remain
The light of hope refusing to give in to fear
The light of peace that terror can not dim
The light of comfort in the midst of deepest grief
A beacon for gun controls laws that would have kept weapons out of the hands of Omar Mateen
A conflagration of solidarity for Muslims across our land
The spark of healing for closeted families who missed the opportunity to love them in the wholeness of who God created them to be
Bearers of the flames of remembrance for each member of our family murdered early this morning
The glow of gentle anger smoldering because it happened again, vowing to do all we can so it never happens again.

Compassion: Orlando

by Teresa Cowan Jones

We mourn the loss of life of our brothers and sisters in Orlando and hold hope for healing and love for all the victims and their families and friends. May we all hold tight to the universal value of compassion, especially for the marginalized, and reach out to each other and to the source of life — the ground of all being, however you define it — for support in our grief.

I hear responses to this tragedy that seem to force a choice between love and accountability. We can hold these together; love provides both the means and the end.

We stand with the LGBTQ+ people and all those who are oppressed in the work of both love and justice, which must go together for either to have meaning.

We invite all to reclaim public space as safe space for human feeling and connection and to do so because, and not in spite of, our differences. Together only will we find our way to both honor the rich uniqueness of our cultures and wisdom traditions and celebrate our oneness as humanity. It’s OK that we don’t know how just yet. We will make mistakes but with the goal of compassion, we can stumble together to find our way to a new way of living and being together in which all beings are honored and have dignity.

Hate crimes and terrorist activity demand that we come together in love and solidarity. In Sacred Space this week, we’ll look with new eyes at the sayings of Jesus to help us stay sure-footed in both compassion and justice. We need not let beliefs, religions, race, gender or sexual orientation separate us anymore. We can be one.

May we all love, together, now.  May we focus on our unity and strength and continue to draw encouragement from each other in and for the creation of beloved community.  Let us look at our collective human heritage of the world’s wisdom traditions to teach us a new path.  Let us get to know the stranger – the seeming other – in a way that heals the human species and the planet.

May we let our collective and rightful outrage fuel the changes for which we can no longer wait or assign to someone else. May we all feel now and act now.