The End of the World As We Know It

"So, if they say to you, ‘Look! He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out.
If they say, ‘Look! He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it…
But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
-- Jesus Christ (Matthew, Chapter 24)

"It's the end of the world, as we know it…and I feel fine."
-- REM

Even with our national grief over Sandy Hook continuing, there is anecdotal evidence that, in some places, long lines are forming outside gun shops. (This commentator predicts it here.)

Disturbing news, of course. But given the Sandy Hooks shooting on last Friday, and the end of the Mayan calendar on this one, it's not surprising.

There is an apocalyptic fear that always seems to flow, just below the surface of American life, and it rears its ugly head now and then. Americans, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, have always had a secret fetish for the "end times."

The distinctive American end-times-fear has a theological and a secular form. They are related, but they are also distinct.

The theological form sees Jesus riding in on the clouds at the end of the world.
(Although, apparently, this week people are willing to grant a "Mayan exception")

The secular form sees President Obama riding a fleet of UN helicopters into Anytown, USA, to tear guns from the hands of law abiding citizens.

Look. Can I offer a bit of perspective?

First off, the world's not gonna end on Friday. It's just not.

People have been predicting the end of the world since the beginning of time, and they've always been terribly, terribly wrong. They will be on Friday too. Here's an impressive list of just how many times they've been wrong.

But more than this, as you can read from the above passage, Jesus was very clear that even he didn't know when it was going to be. He says that only "God the Father" could know such things.

Given this, there's a very simple, easy, and scripturally irrefutable test to see if any particular day will be the actual end of the world.

The test is this:
If somebody says any specific day is the end of the world, you are absolutely, positively 100 percent assured it will NOT be that day.

Why? Because Jesus said so.
("Jesus said it. I believe it. That settles it")

That is why, from a Christian perspective, I can say with great assurance: The world won't end Friday.

So people, please calm down out there. Please. Take a breath. Several.

But, what about the "secular form?" The idea that the government is about to swoop in and take away guns from every single human being on the planet?

Look, my sense is this: Sandy Hooks has changed things. The horror of Sandy Hooks has opened the eyes of many people, in ways that few events in recent history have.

As I wrote Saturday: "Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results."

I have a sense that the American people are about to wake up from our insanity about guns.

So, in that sense, then, maybe it is the "end of the world as we know it."

And if it is? Then, dear God, I do feel fine!

I feel fine about a world of unregulated guns coming to an end.

I feel fine about the sale of assault weapons coming to an end.
(Hint: if a  weapon has the name "assault" in the title, it's not a defensive weapon)

I feel fine about the gun-show loopholes coming to an end.

I feel fine about high-capacity magazines coming to an end.

If that's the "end of the world" we're talking about? Bring it on!

I mean, when Joe Scaborough --former Republican Member of Congress, with a 100 percent NRA rating-- comes out with this commentary, you know the world is changing, and an old world is ending:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

BTW, the United Methodist Church has been calling for changes to the way we treat guns for a decade. You can read our fine statement here.

Ironically, one of the themes of Advent is Christ's coming into the world.

We remember Christ's coming once.
We celebrate Christ's coming at Christmas, into our hearts now.
And we look forward to some final coming, where things on earth will be quite different than they are now.

As we say this three-fold affirmation the communion liturgy every time we take that sacrament:

"Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again."

Yes. Exactly.

In this, we say, "Yes, the world is dark and dangerous. Yes, the world is cold and yes fear is rampant. But incarnate love is still possible. Things can be different than they are now"

Lord knows (and the Lord does) the world needs to change on guns.

When more preschoolers die from guns than members of law enforcement, the world needs to change.
(And, no, nobody in law enforcement ever needs to die. Just pointing out the horrible irony…)

When eleven of the world's 20-worst mass gun killings have happened in America in the past fifty years, the world needs to change.

When FIVE of those have been since 2007, the world needs to change.

When there have been thirty-one school shootings since "Columbine," the world needs to change.

We are insane about guns in our society, and we need to change.

OK. Let me turn my focus. If you are a gun owner, I want to speak directly to you now.

If just reading the words in this blog strikes a fear into you heart, all I can tell you is this:
God calls us to faith, not firearms.
Our faith is in God, not guns.

Life in inherently risky. You cannot possibly own enough guns and ammunition to keep your family safe in all circumstances and at all times. That is the truth. Believing you can is a dangerous fiction. It's dangerous to you. It's dangerous to your family.

Few people I know want to ban all guns. But they do want to reduce gun deaths, and some kind of responsible regulation will probably be a part of that.

Obama will not take all guns. The government will not take all guns. That will never happen. Anybody who tells you it will is stirring up fear in your heart, driving you away from faith in God,  and rotting your view of your fellow human being.

Buying more guns cannot save you from your all of your fears. Even if you carry a gun 24-7, there are hundreds of times a day when somebody could shoot you or your loved ones. I know this to be theologically and spiritual true. But, apparently, it's also been factually proven.

I don't own a gun. But I love you, my gun-owning friends. And I love you enough to tell you that you are 4.5 times more likely to be shot than I am. (Read it here)

You see, I tell you this not because I hate you, but precisely because I love you. I don't want to see you die like the millions of other American gun owners who die every year by having their own guns turned on themselves, or in some horrible gun accident involving their loved ones.

Take the horror of Sandy Hooks, for example. Today, Michael Moore tweeted this bitterly sarcastic, but totally true, message:

"If only the first victim, Adam Lanza's mother, had been a gun owner, she could have stopped this before it started" 

Of course, she was a gun owner. She taught him to shoot. He used her guns to kill her, and twenty-six other human beings. It's literally true to say --however hard it is to hear-- that she taught him how to kill her.

Harsh? Yes.

But the truth is harsh, dear gun owner friends.
It's a harsh truth you need to hear precisely because I do care about you. 
I don't want to see that happen to you.

Don't fear anybody taking away all the guns. If you love guns, there will always be a legal way for you to have them, if you want them.

As I said the other day, one of the things we owe the Christmas Angels, those who died Friday, is to not just dream of, but make real, something new; to stop being insane about guns, and to do things a different way.

The world may end someday. But it won't end Friday.
And it won't end should there be more gun regulation either.

But, here in Advent, we may well be seeing the end of a part of our world: The part that tolerates unregulated guns, and unending death.

If so, I am ready for it.

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What We Owe The Christmas Angels

We are still grieving. I am still grieving.

It was around noon yesterday when I saw the news alert for this shooting come across my phone. I burst into tears.

Twenty young children, the most innocent and helpless members of our society, cut down by what will most certainly be judged to be a mentally ill person.

Twenty families, many with presents under their Christmas trees, that will go unopened. Hundreds of schoolmates, thousands of family members, who will never ever be the same.

But, it's even broader than this. Every single parent in America sees this  and recoils. They hug their children (we did). Their thoughts immediately rush to their children's school, and they imagine the horror of such things in their towns too.

What happens to us is all is: FEAR.

Big, bold fear, with capital letters.

So, these are the thoughts of grief that first fly through my soul. They still rattling inside their today, and even as a write these words, I can feel the emotion welling up.

But, there is something else that wells up in me, just as deeply, and surprisingly strong: ANGER.

Because two thousand years ago, Christmas angels told the world, "FEAR NOT."

And yet, far too often, we are still a world ruled by our fears. Whether we own guns or don't own guns, we live in fear. Whether we've been involved in a shooting, or just watched them from afar, we live in fear.

But, especially at Christmas, we read Bible stories of how God does not want us to live in fear. God wants us to live in world of hope and peace.

So, because this call to "fear not" has been with us for long, and because these damn shootings keep happening, increasing our fear, what comes out in me is anger.

Righteous, God-inspired anger.

Anger at the continuing scourge of gun violence. Anger that, once again, another mass shooting has happened. Anger that, once again, I am told that "now is not the time to talk about guns."

Yes. Yes, it is. It is the perfect time. Like any other issue that confronts your life, the time to talk about it is when it happens. That's what any therapist will tell you. Don't push it down. Don't bury it. TALK about it.

There is an old expression, of debatable attribution, that goes:

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

So, this morning, I choose to name the insanity, and choose to talk about guns.

Specially, I want to talk to gun owners, and those who are strong defenders of the Second Amendment. Some of you who are gun owners are my friends and family. I love you all dearly. But the time has come to talk about these things.

YOU must be willing to talk about these.
YOU must be willing to search your heart, to open your eyes to the reality of gun violence in our nation.
Change will come from YOU…gun owners…

Until then, we will all continue to be insane, and the innocent will continue to die.

To those of you who own guns, I want to speak to you as a minister, theologically and spiritually, and to tell you the most true thing I know on the subject:

Life is inherently risky. In every moment of life, we encounter innumerable risks to our security and safety. Even if you carry gun on your person, 24-7, every day you will encounter situations where you can still be shot, where your loved ones can be shot, and where there is absolutely nothing you and your gun can do to stop it.

Think about your average day. Consider the number of times you are in the mall, at school, watching a movie, in church…and your guard is down. You deserve to be able to have moments, in public, where your guard is down.

This is the world God wants.

We cannot live with unregulated gun ownership, and without fear. Those two things are incompatible with each other.

Guns cannot keep you safe. Guns cannot keep your family safe. It is not possible to own enough guns, or stock enough ammunition, to keep your family safe in each and every moment of life. It's a dangerous fiction --perhaps the MOST dangerous-- to believe you can.

The goal of ordinary life in America cannot be a fully-armed citizenry, ever vigilant for an attack.

Is that the America you believe will keep us safe? You are wrong. You will fail. That America will fail. Gun attacks, in that kind of America, will only continue and only worsen.

The answer, and our only hope, is in the opposite direction entirely. The answer, and our only hope, is to put our trust in God, not guns. The answer is to listen to the leading of true FAITH.

Not faith in firearms, but faith in God, and trust in each other.

Guns erode trust. Guns are to the violent and mentally ill mind, what crack cocaine is to the addict. The easy access to guns tempt the mentally ill.

These events happen over and over and over again, and we throw up our hands and say, "Well there's nothing we can do about it."

Yes there is. Many other nations on earth do not suffer the gun deaths we do in our nation. They do things differently, and they get a different result. They choose to not be insane about guns.

Or, maybe you acknowledge some problem, but you imagine it's not really that bad. After all, more people die in traffic accidents each year, they say, and we don't outlaw cars.
That is true.

But did you know that the number of gun death is just about pull even with the number of traffic deaths? The difference is less than ten percent, and if the trend-lines continue they will likely pull even with each other in the next few years.

We put regulations in place to make cars safer and make drivers more responsible. That has reduced, dramatically, the number of car deaths. Meanwhile, the number of gun deaths continue to rise. Unless we choose to do something differently, in two years or less, as many people will die from traffic accidents as from guns.

One of the best pieces I've read in the past day is from Ezra Klein of the Washington Post. When confronted with this same insanity over guns, he points out this:

"If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.

Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late."

Yes. It is much too late. And our inability to deal with this issue is clinically insane.
On Facebook, I saw this following:

One guy tries a shoe bomb = Every flyer takes their shoes off.
Thirty-one school shootings since Columbine = no changes at all.

Yep.

Some of you still don't believe the problem is as bad as it is. That's part of the problem…you don't SEE the problem.

So, here are some facts (Many from that same Ezra Klein story):

-- Of the 20 worst mass shootings in world history over the past fifty years, eleven have been in the United States alone.

-- Of those eleven US shootings, five have happened since 2007.

-- Add together all the gun deaths in the 23 wealthiest countries in the world and 80 percent of those deaths are Americans. Of all the children killed by guns in those nations, 87 percent are American kids.

-- Since 2005, there is a multiple-victim shooting in America every 5.9 days. (Citation here)

-- Israel and Switzerland are wealthy, first-world nations, with a high-level of gun ownership. But! A very low incidents of mass shootings.

-- The Harvard Injury Control Research Center found substantial evidence that indicates "more guns means more murders." This holds true whether you’re looking at different countries or different states.

-- The number of guns in this nation is almost at a "one-to-one" ratio.

-- States with tighter gun control laws tend to have fewer gun homicides. New York City has some of the strictest gun laws on the nation, and violent crime has been dropping there for twenty years.
(citations here and here)
----------------------------------------

I don't want to repeal the Second Amendment. However, if gun owners and defenders continue to reflexively oppose any gun regulation, then maybe I will harden my position.

Maybe it's only when a large number of American citizens threaten all gun ownership that things will change. If so, so be it. I am ready even for that debate.


I believe what this says:

It is time for a national conversation about guns and gun safety. Yesterday, I signed the pledge at "We are Better Than This." I encourage you to do the same.

It is also time for a conversation about the mentally ill. This is perhaps just as crucial. We must be change the way we treat the mentally ill in our nation, how we care for them, how we stigmatize them. A part of our collective insanity is in failing to deal with the mentally ill themselves.

This blog is mostly about the issue of guns, but I'd be remiss to not mention mental illness too. To me, they are two sides of the same coin. My passion and anger comes out about guns.

My COMpassion comes out about mental illness. The best words I've heard on this subject come from a woman who calls herself "The Anarchist Soccer Mom." You should read her blog here. (Note I said "should," not "can.")

Her son, Michael, suffers from mental illness, and this blog is something of both a confessional and a cry for help. In this section, she talks about taking him to a mental hospital for treatment:

"On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.”

And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map). Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do."

There's that word again: FEAR.

As we open up our national conversation about guns, we must do the same about mental illness too. I give thanks for the Anarchist Soccer Mom, who is trying her best to get her son help, not shooting lessons. We must help Moms like her; any Mom anywhere struggling with a son with mental illness.

I can disagree with her about whether or not it's actually "easy" to talk about guns. I think, as I've just  said, our nation has something of a sickness about guns...perhaps the sickness of denial...but I can take her point too. Mental illness causes deep fear in folks, and except for training the police to deal with it, we seem to be doing little else.

It's time to talk about mental illness too.

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One story leaped out at me this morning. Among the twenty dead children yesterday is one who was scheduled to be in the Christmas pageant at the local Catholic Church.

She was scheduled to be a Christmas Angel.

That Christmas Angel deserved better. So did the twenty other angels of yesterday. They did not deserve to die, nor did God fore-ordain their deaths.

God understands that fear is a dominant emotion of our world. So it was that the original Christmas angels tell the shepherd "FEAR NOT."

Overcoming our fears, finding ways to live together in love with our fellow human beings, is what God calls us to. Our fears can never be overcome with firearms.

Yes, if we adopt sensible gun laws, innocent people will still die. We cannot reduce gun deaths to zero, just like we cannot reduce traffic deaths to zero either.

But we CAN reduce them. We absolutely can. We can make the world much safer, just as we have done with cars.

These things are not preordained and predestined by God. God gives us our intellect, our reason, our logic, to be able to solve challenging issues like this.

We owe that little girl, that Christmas Angel, and all her angel friends...
we owe those killed in the Aurora movie theater...
we owe those killed in the Sikh Temple...
...a world where they can go to a school, a movie, or be in prayer, and not die of gun violence.

Let's honor their memories and give them that world.

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Reponse to the Connecticut Shooting

Dear Friends:

The unspeakable events in Connecticut today have everyone reeling, and in shock. It's almost unfathomable to believe the loss and the grief.

I can share with you that I have been crying off and on all day. I find myself moving back and forth between deep grief for the loss of innocent life, and deep anger at the abiding scourge of gun violence in our society; a problem that is, statistically, 20-times worse in our nation than in any other developed nation on earth.

Please do call us, or reach out via email, if you are feeling the need to talk about these events. I know that many you who are parents are struggling --as are Dennise and I-- with how to deal with these issues with our children.

Here are some tips from Channel 8 News and Children's Medical Center, that seem generally solid. If any of you parents wish to talk, please do call us.

We have a previously scheduled "Service for the Longest Night" coming up this Sunday evening. While it was conceived of as a service to remember our personal griefs and losses, there is no reason it cannot also serve as a time to mourn the violence and loss of life in this tragedy too.

We'll light candles of hope, sing songs of the holiday, and attempt to witness to the belief that nothing can separate of us from the love of God…a love no darkness can overcome.

So, if you are feeling the need to gather, that time might be very helpful for folks to come and share their sense of grief and loss.

Also, this hymn/prayer, originally written by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette after the Columbine shooting, seems appropriate today.

God be with you all….EF


    "God, we have heard it, sounding in the silence:
    News of the children lost to this world's violence.
    Children of promise! Then without a warning,
    Loved ones are mourning.

    Jesus, you came to bear our human sorrow;
    You came to give us hope for each tomorrow.
    You are our life, Lord God's own love revealing.
    We need your healing!

    Heal us from giving weapons any glory;
    Help us, O Prince of Peace, to hear your story;
    Help us resist the evil all around here;
    May love abound here!

    By your own Spirit, give your church a clear voice;
    In this world's violence, help us make a new choice.
    Help us to witness to the joy your peace brings,
    Until your world sings!"

Original source here.

UPDATE:
I have now written a much longer blog that incorporates not only the sadness of these moments, but also a sense of justice and a naming of important issues. Please feel free to find it here.

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Jimmy Fallon and The Roots Redeem This Song (And Mariah)

This is the funnest things I've seen this holiday season.

This is straight out of the "this is harder than it looks" book.
Only truly talented musicians can pull this off.

Thanks to all for the big smile this holiday season.

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