Thoughts and Prayers Are Not Enough

A letter and prayer to the congregation I serve.

Here we are again, hiding in the bathroom, so our children and grandchildren do not hear us weeping, hugging them longer and tighter than usual, and asking ourselves how long we will continue to allow our children to be slaughtered due in part to our refusal to wade into the waters of gun rights.

Here we are again rewriting the prayers for Sunday morning, not knowing what to say in the same way we did not know what to say last time or the times before that.

Here we are again looking at one another, trying to hide our exhaustion and sadness.

Here we are again looking up to Heaven, asking why.

Here we are again saying “thoughts and prayers” are not enough.

The prophet Isaiah wrote that the nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4). Yet we continue to live in a nation that tolerates the killing of children without addressing limits on gun ownership. The Second Amendment did not come down from Mount Sinai. The Second Amendment does not supersede Jesus’ command to love one another. The Second Amendment will never be more important than human life; the lives of our children.

It might sound odd for your pastors to make such a political statement. Still, it is even odder that we have not demanded action by our elected leaders nearly ten years after the Sandy Hook massacre and over twenty years since the Columbine massacre. Yet, the Church cannot remain silent in the face of an idolatrous addiction to guns.

Today and in the days ahead, we will grieve what has been lost and mourn alongside families with empty beds in their homes.

Today and in the days ahead, we will hug our children tighter and pray more fervently that they are safe while outside of our care.

Today and in the days ahead, we will pray for the moral courage to demand action so that we do not have to write this letter ever again.

We call on the Mount Olivet community, as a community of grace, to join us in praying for the students, families, teachers, and community of Uvalde, Texas, and all communities where children are not permitted to attend school free of the fear of violence.

“A Prayer for Gun Violence in School” by Kayla Craig, from To Light Their Way: A Collection of Prayers and Liturgies for Parents:

O God of protection and peace,

We come to You weary,

Heartbroken, and afraid.

How do we explain to our child

What it means to practice an active shooter drill at school

When we ourselves don’t have the words?

When we ourselves barely understand?

How has it gotten this dangerous

To be a child

In a desk

In a classroom?

We grieve for innocence lost by way of violence.

Lord, hear our prayer.

We ache for teachers who must prepare for the unthinkable.

Lord, hear our prayer.

We pray for every mother and father

Who is forever changed by the unimaginable–

The death of a child

At the hand of gun violence.

Lord, hear our prayer.

We rub our eyes and will our minds to stop the imagery,

For it is too much to hold.

And yet, some must hold it.

Lord, hear our prayer.

O Lord who said let the children come to Me,

We have sent out teachers to first-aid seminars

But have not cried out to You to stop the bleeding.

Give us the imagination to see a world

Without violence.

Give us a Kingdom imagination to create a better future

For our children and their children.

We are scared, Lord.

We even wonder how you can allow

Mass shootings to happen.

When we walk our children to their classrooms,

We lament that we quietly assess

How close their tiny cubbies are to the front door.

But we know this is not Your way, O Lord.

Help us beat our swords into plowshares.

Help us put down our swords,

Collectively and individually.

Speak peace into our children’s hearts

As their little minds try to comprehend

The possibilities of what they’re practicing for.

Our job as parents is to keep our children safe–

How do we do so?

Give us eyes to see.

Give us new vocabularies.

And courageous hearts to champion.

Our children.

Lord, heal our collective wounds.

Lord, heal our individual hearts.

That crack into pieces

Every time our kids step onto the bus.

Lord, may we see into Your upside-down Kingdom.

Give us courage and boldness

To plead the case of our children.

Deliver us from the evil one,

And may our action for a more peaceable world

For our children

Be a prayer of its own.

Lord, hear our prayer.

– Pastor Ed Walker, Pastor Jeff Goodman, Pastor Teer Hardy