Killed All the Day Long

In the 26th chapter of Leviticus we find a description of the state the people of Israel will find themselves in if they depart from their loyalty to God. “The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues.”

Now, of course, there are numbers among us who have weapons that would blast that leaf to atoms, and feel brave as they did it, confirmed in their alarm by the fact that there are so very many leaves. But the point is the same. Those who forget God, the single assurance of our safety however that word may be defined, can be recognized in the fact that they make irrational responses to irrational fears.

The text specifies the very real threat that fear itself poses—“you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.”

—Marilynne Robinson, "Fear" (from her collection of essays The Givenness of Things)

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Dear Kate,

"We the People" you say, a united State.

What brings people together?  What unites your people, shapes the common tongue to make sense of life, in solidarity with each and everyone?

Love, a naïve preacher says; fear, a savvy politician knows.

A savvy preacher bakes potato love and eats it too, body of Christ he breaks and sends the congregation back to the mass agitated, made fervent by their failure to connect with anyone, collect anything.

You told me your people are talking, about guns, while pretty much everyone keeps some in one's closet, "just in case."  I imagine not unlike talking about the environment while keeping one's car on the road, for all cases.

Gun culture, how would you define it?  A culture that necessitates a gun, many guns, powerful guns, weapons of mass destruction.  A culture that breaks apart if not for the love of what guns bring, holding things and people together.

A gun in your closet holds things together, in case situation arises that could break you apart, your curated household to smithereens.  As Ms. Robinson says above, after all, "there are so very many leaves."  Better that they fall, blasted into smithereens, than you.  

You walk into a conversation and want to join it, speak in solidarity with all speakers, take a bite of that potato love and pass it around?  Bring your fear.  Speak about your pains and worries, challenges to your wellbeing, health and money issues, scarcity and inadequacy you need to face and overcome.  People will understand, give you high-fives and Amens, ask you for advice and share theirs with you, call you a sister, a friend, someone easy to talk to and easier to like, even love.  In solidarity, agitated and fervent, validated you shall feel going home to lick your wounds and kiss your gun.

"Don't try to change me," if someone is to tell you that, what do you think that someone is telling you?  That she cannot be deterred in her loving way?  That he shall not be subverted in his will to trust?  That there is nothing you can do about his fear and greed.  That either you acknowledge them, accept them,  celebrate them if you are truly decent, or fuck off.

The words I long to hear I can't remember the last time I heard them from the tongues of my brothers and sisters, and that's how far we are from God:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,

     “For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; 

       we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Yours, Alex